Engineering local strain for single-atom nuclear acoustic resonance in silicon

2021/08/30 by Laura A. O'Neill, Benjamin Joecker, Andrew D. Baczewski +2
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Acoustic Wave Resonator Technologies #Atom (system on chip) #Atomic physics #Condensed matter physics #Electric field #Electric field gradient #Materials science #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Optoelectronics #Physics #Quadrupole #Quantum and electron transport phenomena #Quantum mechanics #Semiconductor #Silicon #Spin (aerodynamics) #cond-mat.mes-hall #quant-ph

paper · pdf · doi:10.1063/5.0069305

6 pages, 5 figures

arxiv created 2021/08/30 · openalex publication_date 2021/10/25 · arxiv updated 2021/11/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Mechanical strain plays a key role in the physics and operation of nanoscale semiconductor systems, including quantum dots and single-dopant devices. Here, we describe the design of a nanoelectronic device, where a single nuclear spin is coherently controlled via nuclear acoustic resonance (NAR) through the local application of dynamical strain. The strain drives spin transitions by modulating the nuclear quadrupole interaction. We adopt an AlN piezoelectric actuator compatible with standard silicon metal–oxide–semiconductor processing and optimize the device layout to maximize the NAR drive. We predict NAR Rabi frequencies of order 200 Hz for a single 123Sb nucleus in a wide region of the device. Spin transitions driven directly by electric fields are suppressed in the center of the device, allowing the observation of pure NAR. Using electric field gradient-elastic tensors calculated by the density-functional theory, we extend our predictions to other high-spin group-V donors in silicon and to the isoelectronic 73Ge atom.

Citations

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