Decoherence of coupled electron spins via nuclear spin dynamics in quantum dots

Abstract

In double quantum dots, the exchange interaction between two electron spins renormalizes the excitation energy of pair-flips in the nuclear spin bath, which in turn modifies the non-Markovian bath dynamics. As the energy renormalization varies with the Overhauser field mismatch between the quantum dots, the electron singlet-triplet decoherence resulting from the bath dynamics depends on sampling of nuclear spin states from an ensemble, leading to the transition from exponential decoherence in single-sample dynamics to power-law decay under ensemble averaging. In contrast, the decoherence of a single electron spin in one dot is essentially the same for different choices of the nuclear spin configuration.