Ab-initio theory of spin-phonon relaxation for paramagnetic defects in semiconductors

ORAL

Abstract

The theory of spin-lattice relaxation in solids were originally developed back in the 60's by pioneering work of Orbach [1] and various others. However, the ab-initio predictions for spin-phonon induced spin relaxation and dephasing are still a scarce. There are recent ab-initio studies [2] that discuss the spin-phonon interaction in molecular magnets with limited degrees of freedom, yet the ab-initio theory for paramagnetic defects in bulk materials is still lacking. Therefore, we will show the key elements of spin-phonon interaction in an exemplary nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center of diamond and depict the second-order Raman processes that governs the spin-lattice interaction within its |ms=0〉, |ms=±1〉 spin triplet manifold and also the main contributor in temperature dependence of zero-field splitting. We will show a novel spectral function formalism that incorporates both the continuous aspects of phonons and finite nature of point defects. In summary, our present method predicts spin T1 and T2 times for defects comparable to that of experiments [3].

[1] R. Orbach (1961) Spin-lattice relaxation in rare-earth salts. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. A264458–484

[2] A. Lunghi (2022) arXiv:2202.03776

[3] M. Cambria, G. Thiering et al., (2022). arXiv:2209.14446.

*A. G. acknowledges the support from the NKFIH in Hungary for the National Excellence Program (Grant No. KKP129866), the Quantum Information National Laboratory, and the EU QuantERA II MAESTRO project and from the European Commission for the QuMicro project (Grant No. 101046911). G. T. was supported by the Janos Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. A. G. and G. T. acknowledge the high-performance computational resources provided by KIFU (Governmental Agency for IT Development) institute of Hungary.

Publication: [3] Cambria, M. C., Norambuena, A., Dinani, H. T., Thiering, G., Gardill, A., Kemeny, I., ... & Kolkowitz, S. (2022). Temperature-dependent phonon-induced relaxation of the nitrogen-vacancy spin triplet in diamond. arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.14446.

Presenters

  • Gergo Thiering

    • Wigner Research Centre

Authors

  • Matthew C Cambria

    • University of Wisconsin - Madison
  • Ariel Norambuena

    • Universidad Mayor
  • Yanfei Li

    • University of Wisconsin - Madison
  • Hossein Dinani

    • Universidad Mayor
    • Universidad Mayor Chile
  • Gergo Thiering

    • Wigner Research Centre
  • Aedan Robert H Gardill

    • University of Wisconsin - Madison
  • Ishita Kemeny

    • University of Wisconsin - Madison
  • Vincenzo Lordi

    • Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab
  • Adam Gali

    • Wigner Research Centre for Physics
    • Wigner Research Centre
  • Jeronimo R Maze

    • Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile
    • Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
  • Shimon Kolkowitz

    • Wisconsin
    • University of Wisconsin - Madison