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Advanced optical manipulation of carrier spins in (In,Ga)As quantum dots

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Abstract

Spins in semiconductor quantum dots have been considered as prospective quantum bit excitations. Their coupling to the crystal environment manifests itself in a limitation of the spin coherence times to the microsecond range, both for electron and hole spins. This rather short-lived coherence compared to atomic states asks for manipulations on timescales as short as possible. Due to the huge dipole moment for transitions between the valence and conduction band, pulsed laser systems offer the possibility to perform manipulations within picoseconds or even faster. Here, we report on results that show the potential of optical spin manipulations with currently available pulsed laser systems. Using picosecond laser pulses, we demonstrate optically induced spin rotations of electron and hole spins. We further realize the optical decoupling of the hole spins from the nuclear surrounding at the nanosecond timescales and demonstrate an all-optical spin tomography for interacting electron spin sub-ensembles.

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Acknowledgments

We acknowledge the support of this work by the BMBF through the Q.com-H initiative (project 16KIS0104K) and also by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Russian Foundation of Basic Research through the ICRC TRR 160. M.B. acknowledges support by the Government of Russia (project 14.Z50.31.0021).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Experimentelle Physik 2, Technische Universität Dortmund, 44221, Dortmund, Germany

    S. Varwig, E. Evers, A. Greilich, D. R. Yakovlev & M. Bayer

  2. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, Saint Petersburg, Russia, 194021

    D. R. Yakovlev & M. Bayer

  3. Angewandte Festkörperphysik, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780, Bochum, Germany

    D. Reuter & A. D. Wieck

  4. Department Physik, Universität Paderborn, 33095, Paderborn, Germany

    D. Reuter, T. Meier & A. Zrenner

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  1. S. Varwig
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  2. E. Evers
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  3. A. Greilich
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  4. D. R. Yakovlev
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  9. M. Bayer
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. Greilich.

Additional information

This paper is part of the topical collection “Quantum Repeaters: From Components to Strategies” guest edited by Manfred Bayer, Christoph Becher and Peter van Loock.

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Varwig, S., Evers, E., Greilich, A. et al. Advanced optical manipulation of carrier spins in (In,Ga)As quantum dots. Appl. Phys. B 122, 17 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00340-015-6274-y

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