Interaction of Strain and Nuclear Spins in Silicon: Quadrupolar Effects on Ionized Donors

Abstract

The nuclear spins of ionized donors in silicon have become an interesting quantum resource due to their very long coherence times. Their perfect isolation, however, comes at a price, since the absence of the donor electron makes the nuclear spin difficult to control. We demonstrate that the quadrupolar interaction allows us to effectively tune the nuclear magnetic resonance of ionized arsenic donors in silicon via strain and determine the two nonzero elements of the S tensor linking strain and electric field gradients in this material to $S_{11}=1.5\times10^{22}$ V/m$^2$ and $S_{44}=6\times 10^{22}$ V/m$^2$. We find a stronger benefit of dynamical decoupling on the coherence properties of transitions subject to first-order quadrupole shifts than on those subject to only second-order shifts and discuss applications of quadrupole physics including mechanical driving of magnetic resonance, cooling of mechanical resonators, and strain-mediated spin coupling.