Electrically driven electron spin resonance mediated by spin–valley–orbit coupling in a silicon quantum dot

The ability to manipulate electron spins with voltage-dependent electric fields is key to the operation of quantum spintronics devices, such as spin-based semiconductor qubits. A natural approach to electrical spin control exploits the spin–orbit coupling (SOC) inherently present in all materials. So far, this approach could not be applied to electrons in silicon, due to their extremely weak SOC. Here we report an experimental realization of electrically driven electron–spin resonance in a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) nanowire quantum dot device. The underlying driving mechanism results from an interplay between SOC and the multi-valley structure of the silicon conduction band, which is enhanced in the investigated nanowire geometry. We present a simple model capturing the essential physics and use tight-binding simulations for a more quantitative analysis. We discuss the relevance of our findings to the development of compact and scalable electron–spin qubits in silicon.Silicon-based qubits: electrically-driven manipulation of spins in double quantum dotsWeak spin–orbit effects in silicon can be exploited to electrically drive electron-spin resonance in a silicon nanowire quantum dot device with low-symmetry confinement potential. Andrea Corna and colleagues at Grenoble’s CEA and University Grenoble Alpes achieved this by fabricating a silicon nanowire device over a silicon-on-insulator wafer, on which the gate accumulation voltages can define two corner quantum dots. Quantum confinement allows the coupling of spin and valley degrees of freedom via spin–orbit coupling, despite its inherent weakness in silicon, when the energy splitting between the valley energy eigenstates matches the magnetic field-induced Zeeman spin splitting. The observation of electric-dipole spin-valley resonance demonstrates the potential of spin–orbit coupling for realizing electric-field-mediated spin control, which will be crucial for large-scale integration of silicon-based spin qubits.

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