Experimental signature of phonon-mediated spin relaxation in a two-electron quantum dot

Phys Rev Lett. 2007 Mar 23;98(12):126601. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.126601. Epub 2007 Mar 22.

Abstract

We observe an experimental signature of the role of phonons in spin relaxation between triplet and singlet states in a two-electron quantum dot. Using both the external magnetic field and the electrostatic confinement potential, we change the singlet-triplet energy splitting from 1.3 meV to zero and observe that the spin relaxation time depends nonmonotonously on the energy splitting. A simple theoretical model is derived to capture the underlying physical mechanism. The present experiment confirms that spin-flip energy is dissipated in the phonon bath.