Probing two-level systems with electron spin inversion recovery of defects at the Si/SiO2_2 interface

The main feature of amorphous materials is the presence of excess vibrational modes at low energies, giving rise to the so called "boson peak" in neutron and optical spectroscopy. These same modes manifest themselves as two level systems (TLSs) causing noise and decoherence in qubits and other sensitive devices. Here we present an experiment that uses the spin relaxation of dangling bonds at the Si/(amorphous)SiO$_2$ interface as a probe of TLSs. We introduce a model that is able to explain the observed non-exponential electron spin inversion recovery and provides a measure of the degree of spatial localization and concentration of the TLSs close to the interface, their maximum energy and its temperature dependence.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, regular pape

Dangling-bond spin relaxation and magnetic 1/f noise from the amorphous-semiconductor/oxide interface: Theory

We propose a model for magnetic noise based on spin-flips (not electron-trapping) of paramagnetic dangling-bonds at the amorphous-semiconductor/oxide interface. A wide distribution of spin-flip times is derived from the single-phonon cross-relaxation mechanism for a dangling-bond interacting with the tunneling two-level systems of the amorphous interface. The temperature and frequency dependence is sensitive to three energy scales: The dangling-bond spin Zeeman energy delta, as well as the minimum (E_min) and maximum (E_max) values for the energy splittings of the tunneling two-level systems. We compare and fit our model parameters to a recent experiment probing spin coherence of antimony donors implanted in nuclear-spin-free silicon [T. Schenkel {\it et al.}, Appl. Phys. Lett. 88, 112101 (2006)], and conclude that a dangling-bond area density of the order of 10^{14}cm^{-2} is consistent with the data. This enables the prediction of single spin qubit coherence times as a function of the distance from the interface and the dangling-bond area density in a real device structure. We apply our theory to calculations of magnetic flux noise affecting SQUID devices due to their Si/SiO_2 substrate. Our explicit estimates of flux noise in SQUIDs lead to a noise spectral density of the order of 10^{-12}Phi_{0}^{2} {Hz}^{-1} at f=1Hz. This value might explain the origin of flux noise in some SQUID devices. Finally, we consider the suppression of these effects using surface passivation with hydrogen, and the residual nuclear-spin noise resulting from a perfect silicon-hydride surface.Comment: Final published versio

A Growth model for DNA evolution

A simple growth model for DNA evolution is introduced which is analytically solvable and reproduces the observed statistical behavior of real sequences.Comment: To be published in Europhysics Letter