Nuclear spin state narrowing via gate-controlled Rabi oscillations in a double quantum dot

Abstract

We study spin dynamics for two electrons confined to a double quantum dot under the influence of an oscillating exchange interaction. This leads to driven Rabi oscillations between the $\ensuremath{\mid}\ensuremath{\uparrow}\ensuremath{\downarrow}⟩$ state and the $\ensuremath{\mid}\ensuremath{\downarrow}\ensuremath{\uparrow}⟩$ state of the two-electron system. The width of the Rabi resonance is proportional to the amplitude of the oscillating exchange. A measurement of the Rabi resonance allows one to narrow the distribution of nuclear spin states and thereby to prolong the spin decoherence time. Further, we study decoherence of the two-electron states due to the hyperfine interaction and give requirements on the parameters of the system in order to initialize in the $\ensuremath{\mid}\ensuremath{\uparrow}\ensuremath{\downarrow}⟩$ state and to perform a $\sqrt{\mathrm{SWAP}}$ operation with unit fidelity.