Suppression of spin relaxation in an InAs nanowire double quantum dot

We investigate the triplet-singlet relaxation in a double quantum dot defined by top-gates in an InAs nanowire. In the Pauli spin blockade regime, the leakage current can be mainly attributed to spin relaxation. While at weak and strong inter-dot coupling relaxation is dominated by two individual mechanisms, the relaxation is strongly reduced at intermediate coupling and finite magnetic field. In addition we observe a charateristic bistability of the spin-non conserving current as a function of magnetic field. We propose a model where these features are explained by the polarization of nuclear spins enabled by the interplay between hyperfine and spin-orbit mediated relaxation.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure

Measuring current by counting electrons in a nanowire quantum dot

We measure current by counting single electrons tunneling through an InAs nanowire quantum dot. The charge detector is realized by fabricating a quantum point contact in close vicinity to the nanowire. The results based on electron counting compare well to a direct measurements of the quantum dot current, when taking the finite bandwidth of the detector into account. The ability to detect single electrons also opens up possibilities for manipulating and detecting individual spins in nanowire quantum dots

Self-aligned charge read-out for InAs nanowire quantum dots

A highly sensitive charge detector is realized for a quantum dot in an InAs nanowire. We have developed a self-aligned etching process to fabricate in a single step a quantum point contact in a two-dimensional electron gas and a quantum dot in an InAs nanowire. The quantum dot is strongly coupled to the underlying point contact which is used as a charge detector. The addition of one electron to the quantum dot leads to a change of the conductance of the charge detector by typically 20%. The charge sensitivity of the detector is used to measure Coulomb diamonds as well as charging events outside the dot. Charge stability diagrams measured by transport through the quantum dot and charge detection merge perfectly.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Transport in a three-terminal graphene quantum dot in the multi-level regime

We investigate transport in a three-terminal graphene quantum dot. All nine elements of the conductance matrix have been independently measured. In the Coulomb blockade regime accurate measurements of individual conductance resonances reveal slightly different resonance energies depending on which pair of leads is used for probing. Rapid changes in the tunneling coupling between the leads and the dot due to localized states in the constrictions has been excluded by tuning the difference in resonance energies using in-plane gates which couple preferentially to individual constrictions. The interpretation of the different resonance energies is then based on the presence of a number of levels in the dot with an energy spacing of the order of the measurement temperature. In this multi-level transport regime the three-terminal device offers the opportunity to sense if the individual levels couple with different strengths to the different leads. This in turn gives qualitative insight into the spatial profile of the corresponding quantum dot wave functions.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Detecting THz current fluctuations in a quantum point contact using a nanowire quantum dot

We use a nanowire quantum dot to probe high-frequency current fluctuations in a nearby quantum point contact. The fluctuations drive charge transitions in the quantum dot, which are measured in real-time with single-electron detection techniques. The quantum point contact (GaAs) and the quantum dot (InAs) are fabricated in different material systems, which indicates that the interactions are mediated by photons rather than phonons. The large energy scales of the nanowire quantum dot allow radiation detection in the long-wavelength infrared regime

1/f noise in a dilute GaAs two-dimensional hole system in the insulating phase

We have measured the resistance and the 1/f resistance noise of a two-dimensional low density hole system in a high mobility GaAs quantum well at low temperature. At densities lower than the metal-insulator transition one, the temperature dependence of the resistance is either power-like or simply activated. The noise decreases when the temperature or the density increase. These results contradict the standard description of independent particles in the strong localization regime. On the contrary, they agree with the percolation picture suggested by higher density results. The physical nature of the system could be a mixture of a conducting and an insulating phase. We compare our results with those of composite thin films.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; to appear in Physica E (EP2DS-16 proceedings