PHYSICAL REVIEW B, VOLUME 65, 245213

Time scales of phonon-induced decoherence of semiconductor spin qubits

D. Mozyrsky,1 Sh. Kogan,2 V. N. Gorshkov,3 and G. P. Berman1
1
T-13 and CNLS, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
2
MST-11, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545
3
Physics Department, Clarkson University, Potsdam, New York 13699
共Received 7 December 2001; revised manuscript received 1 March 2002; published 24 June 2002兲
Decoherence of a shallow donor electron spin in Si and Ge caused by electron-lattice interaction is studied.
We find that there are two time scales associated with the evolution of the electron spin density matrix: the fast,
but incomplete decay due to the interaction with nonresonant phonons, followed by slow relaxation resulting
from spin flips accompanied by resonant phonon emission. We estimate both time scales, as well as the
magnitude of the initial drop of coherence for P donor in Si and Ge, and argue that the approach used in the
paper is suitable for evaluation of decoherence for a general class of localized spin states in semiconductors.

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.65.245213 PACS number共s兲: 03.67.Lx, 76.60.Es

Rapid development of quantum information science has
revived interest in study of electron and nuclear spin polar-
ization, specifically in condensed matter physics. Potentially
powerful applications of electronic and nuclear spins in
quantum computing1 and spintronics2 have recently been
proposed. Among these quantum information devices, the
ones utilizing spins in semiconductors seem to be the most
promising candidates for practical implementation. Indeed
the existing semiconductor technology may someday allow
for scalability of the elementary quantum logic gates into
complex integrated circuits needed for information process-
ing.
The problem of fabrication of the semiconductor quantum
processing devices opens up a number of experimental and
theoretical challenges. These include control problems, such
as manipulations by interactions of individual qubits with
external fields and with each other3 共in this work the 1/2
spins represent bits of information and will be convention-
ally referred as qubits兲, the initialization and readout of the
quantum register,4 as well as precise positioning of the qubits
共within several Å) in a semiconductor host—the issue that
requires significant advances made in contemporary litho-
graphic technologies.
Another requirement for implementation of semiconduc-
tor devices for quantum information processing is a long
time memory of the state of a quantum register, i.e., small
decoherence of the spin qubits due to the interaction with
environment. Several theoretical works that study decoher-
ence in systems contemplated for quantum information pro-
cessing have been made recently.5,6 There is an outstanding
set of experiments on spin relaxation processes in GaAs
systems.2,7 It was discovered that at certain doping concen-
tration the transverse relaxation time T 2 of the electron spins
injected into conduction band by optical pumping techniques
increases by several orders of magnitude and exceeds
100 ns under certain conditions. This remarkable phenom-
enon suggests possibilities of its use in the new generation of
electronic nanodevices that utilize polarized spins as infor-
mation carriers and can become the building blocks of the
future electronics.
In the present work we focus on a study of decoherence of
localized electronic spins in semiconductors produced by
acoustic phonons. The localized electronic or nuclear spins
have been proposed to play role of qubits in several quantum
computing architectures.3,8 It has been long known that in
certain semiconductors 共such as Si and Ge兲 the spins of elec-
trons bound to donor atoms have long longitudinal relaxation
times T 1 due to the inversion symmetry of the semiconductor
host as well as due to the localized nature of their orbital
states.9–11 On the other hand, the transverse relaxation of the
spin polarization T 2 in these systems is known to be
smaller12,13 共by a factor 103 for P donors in Si crystals兲. This
effect is believed to be a consequence of fluctuating mag-
netic fields created by nearby nuclear spins.12,13 In our paper
we do not consider such mechanism, as it must be strongly
suppressed in quantum computing applications by special
preparation of the samples, such as isotopic purification of
natural Si crystals, as well as by polarization of the nuclear
spins.3,8 The phonon induced decoherence, however, is
present in these systems even at zero temperature, and thus
cannot be ignored.
We find that there are several time scales in the procces of
phonon induced decoherence. The smaller time scale is de-
fined by the size of the orbital localized wave function of the
electron 共see below兲. The dephasing of this sort is governed
by the interaction with the off-resonant phonons, primarily
with wavelengths comparable to the effective Bohr’s radius
of the donor. Decoherence on this time scale—the drop of
the off-diagonal elements of the spin density matrix is fast,
but incomplete, thus leaving the system in a slightly mixed
state. We term this type of decoherence as phase uncertainty
of the state due to the interaction with environment. A similar
effect was found in a study of decoherence of nuclear spins
qubits due to the hyperfine interaction with electron gas in
quantum Hall regime.6 The later dynamics, i.e., on a much
larger time scale, is determined by the conventional relax-
ational processes associated with spin flips produced by the
resonant phonons.10,11
We consider the spin-lattice interaction Hamiltonian for a
single electron donor in a semiconductor. Such Hamiltonian
can be generally written as10,11
ជ •H⌬
Hs⫺l ⫽A ␮ B 兵 ␴ x˜⑀ xx H x ⫹ ␴ y˜⑀ y y H y ⫹ ␴ z˜⑀ zz H z ⫹ ␴ ˜ /3其
⫹B ␮ B 兵˜⑀ xy 共 ␴ x H y ⫹ ␴ y H x 兲 ⫹c.p.其 , 共1兲

0163-1829/2002/65共24兲/245213共4兲/$20.00 65 245213-1 ©2002 The American Physical Society

MOZYRSKY, KOGAN, GORSHKOV, AND BERMAN
where ␮ B is Bohr’s magneton, ␴ ’s are Pauli matrices, ⑀ ␣␤ is
the effective strain tensor averaged over the ground state
effective mass function of the donor, ⌬ ˜ is the effective dila-
tation, and c.p. stands for ‘‘cyclic permutation.’’ Constants A
and B depend on the specific properties of the host semicon-
ductor as well as of the donor atom. For simplicity we as-
sume that the magnetic field is parallel to the 关001兴 crystal
axis, i.e., H x ⫽H y ⫽0. In this case there is no spin relaxation
due to the first Hamiltonian in Eq. 共1兲. Such alignment of the
magnetic field can be easily achieved experimentally. The
anisotropy of the spin relaxation rate depending on the direc-
tion of the magnetic field for P donors in Si has been directly
observed.9 Then the Hamiltonian 共1兲 is reduced to the fol-
lowing form 共in interaction representation兲:
Hs⫺l 共 t 兲 ⫽ ␴ z Q z 共 t 兲 ⫹ ␴ ⫹ Q ⫺ 共 t 兲 ⫹ ␴ ⫺ Q ⫹ 共 t 兲 ,
where ␴ ⫾ ⫽( ␴ x ⫾i ␴ y )/2 and
Q z 共 t 兲 ⫽A ␮ B H 关˜⑀ zz 共 t 兲 ⫹⌬
˜ 共 t 兲 /3兴 ,
Q ⫾ 共 t 兲 ⫽B ␮ B He ⫾i ␻ s t 关˜⑀ zx 共 t 兲 ⫿i˜⑀ yz 共 t 兲兴 ,
with ␻ s ⫽g * ␮ B H, where g * is the effective electronic g-
factor of the host semiconductor 共it is assumed that the g-
factor that determines the Zeeman splitting for the donor
electron is the same as that for a free electron in the conduc-
tion band兲.
The effective strain tensor in Eqs. 共2兲 and 共3兲 can be ex-
panded in waves with definite wave vectors q and polariza-
tions np
˜⑀ ␣␤ ⫽ 兺
q,np
f 共 q,np 兲 ⑀ ␣␤ 共 q,np 兲 ,
where ⑀ ␣␤ (q,np ) can be written in terms of phonon creation/
annihilation operators as
⑀ ␣␤ 共 q,np 兲 ⫽ 冉 ប
8 ␳ V ␻ q,np 冊 1/2
兵 共 n p ␣ q ␤ ⫹n p ␤ q ␣ 兲
⫻e ⫺i ␻ q,np t a q,n
†
⫹H.c.其 .
p
†
In Eq. 共5兲, 关 a q,np ,a q ,n⬘ 兴 ⫽ ␦ q,q⬘ ␦ np ,n⬘ , ␻ q,np is the phonon
⬘ p p
frequency, ␳ is the crystal mass density, V is the normaliza-
tion volume, and H.c. denotes the Hermitian conjugate part.
Function f (q) is the matrix element of the wave with definite
q between the effective mass functions of the donor. Only
those lattice vibrations that have wavelength comparable or
less than the spatial spread of the donor electron wave func-
tion contribute to the interaction 共1兲 and 共4兲. In the spherical
donor ground state approximation f (q)⫽1/关 1⫹a B2 q 2 /4兴 2 ,
where a B is the effective Bohr radius for the donor.11 Even
though this is not the case for many semiconductors, such as
Si or Ge, we will use the above form of f (q) for order of
magnitude estimates.
We are interested in the evolution of the reduced density
matrix of the electronic spin, ␳ ⫽Trph( ␳ s⫹ph), with trace
taken over the phonon degrees of freedom. Here ␳ s⫹ph is the
density matrix of the full system whose evolution is gov-
PHYSICAL REVIEW B 65 245213
erned by the interaction Hamiltonian 共1兲. The temporal evo-
lution of the reduced density matrix can be described by the
Markovian master equations14
␳˙ 共 t 兲 ⫽⫺
1
ប2 兺i j 冕
o
t
d ␶ 兵关 ␴ i␴ j␳共 t 兲⫺ ␴ j␳共 t 兲␴ i兴
⫻ 具 Q i共 t 兲 Q j共 ␶ 兲 典 ⫺ 关 ␴ i␳ 共 t 兲 ␴ j ⫺ ␳ 共 t 兲 ␴ j ␴ i 兴
⫻具 Q j 共 ␶ 兲 Q i 共 t 兲 典 其 . 共6兲
In Eq. 共6兲 i, j⫽z,⫹,⫺, while 具 典 indicates averages taken
over phonon occupation numbers, wave vectors and polar-
izations. Equations 共6兲 are generally valid on a time scale
large compared to the correlation time of the phonon bath.
共2兲 However, it can be shown that when only the ␴ z term is
retained in the Hamiltonian 共2兲, the decoherence, i.e., the
decay of the off-diagonal elements of the spin density matrix,
for the exactly solvable model15 coincides with the solution
共3a兲 obtained from Eq. 共6兲. Thus we expect that the Markovian
assumption built in Eq. 共6兲 will still be applicable for the
共3b兲 short time regime. Moreover, for the specific case of P donor
in Si crystal considered below, the dimensionless constant A
is an order of magnitude greater than B and therefore the
mechanism of decoherence resulting from coupling to ␴ z
only can be considered separately. However, the master
equation 共6兲 allows us to combine both mechanisms, i.e.,
phase relaxation via the diagonal and off-diagonal spin com-
ponents, into a single framework, and so, in what follows,
we will pursue with the solution of Eq. 共6兲.
In general, Eq. 共6兲 represents four coupled linear differen-
tial equations. Their solution is a cumbersome analytical
共4兲 problem. These equations, however, are greatly simplified if
one assumes that the semiconductor host medium is elasti-
cally isotropic. Such assumption is commonly used in evalu-
ation of phonon related relaxation processes. For the isotro-
pic phonons the only nonvanishing correlators in Eq. 共6兲 are
具 Q z (t)Q z ( ␶ ) 典 , 具 Q ⫺ (t)Q ⫹ ( ␶ ) 典 , and 具 Q ⫹ (t)Q ⫺ ( ␶ ) 典 . As a re-
sult, the equations for the off-diagonal elements decouple
from the equations for the diagonal density matrix elements.
共5兲 For the off-diagonal element ␳ 12 one obtains that
␳ 12共 t 兲 ⫽ ␳ 12共 0 兲 exp关 ⫺⌫ 共 t 兲兴 , 共7兲
with
冕 ⬘冕
1 t t⬘
⌫共 t 兲⫽ dt d ␶ 兵 2 具 关 Q z 共 t ⬘ 兲 ,Q z 共 ␶ 兲兴 ⫹ 典
ប2 0 0
⫹ 具 关 Q ⫺ 共 t ⬘ 兲 ,Q ⫹ 共 ␶ 兲兴 ⫹ 典 其 . 共8兲
In Eq. 共8兲 关 Q i ,Q j 兴 ⫹ denotes anticommutator. We evaluate
correlators entering Eq. 共8兲 for isotropic phonons. After cum-
bersome but straightforward calculation we obtain that
⌫ 共 t 兲 ⫽C A 关 I at 共 t 兲 ⫹ 共 2s 2t /3s 2l 兲 I al 共 t 兲兴
⫹C B 关 I bt 共 t 兲 ⫹ 共 2s 3t /3s 3l 兲 I bl 共 t 兲兴 , 共9兲
where
245213-2
TIME SCALES OF PHONON-INDUCED DECOHERENCE . . .
FIG. 1. Dependence of the spin off-diagonal density matrix el-
ement on time for P donor in Si. The inset shows small time depen-
dence of ⌫ versus t; see Eq. 共7兲.
I ai ⫽ 冕0
⬁
dx x f 2 共 x 兲 兵 1⫺cos关共 ts i /a B 兲 x 兴 其 coth
I bi ⫽ 冕 0
⬁
dx x 3 f 2 共 x 兲
1⫺cos关共 ts i /a B 兲共 x⫺⌬ i 兲兴
关 x⫺⌬ i 兴 2
⫻coth 冉 បs i
2a B k B T
x .冊
In the above equations x⫽qa B , C A ⫽2A 2 ( ␮ B H) 2 /
15␲2បaB2 ␳s3t , C B ⫽B 2 ( ␮ B H) 2 /10␲ 2 បa B2 ␳ s 3t , f (x)⫽ 关 1⫹x 2 /
4兴 ⫺2 , ⌬ i ⫽g * ␮ B Ha B /បs i , and i⫽t,l. Here s l and s t are
longitudinal and transverse sound velocities and T is tem-
perature. The integrals 共10兲 converge due the presence of
f (x). It can be seen from Eqs. 共10兲 that for large t integrals
I ai become constant and independent of t. The I bi integrals
are proportional to t for t→⬁ and therefore asymptotically
⌫(t)⬃t/ ␶ D , where
␶ D⫺1 ⫽ 共 ␲ C B /a B 兲 兵 s t ⌬ 3t f 2 共 ⌬ t 兲
冉 冊
g *␮ BH
⫹ 共 2s 3t /3s 2l 兲 ⌬ 3l f 2 共 ⌬ l 兲 其 coth
2k B T
We evaluate ⌫(t), given by Eqs. 共9兲 and 共10兲, for phosphorus
donors in Si and Ge numerically; see Figs. 1 and 2, respec-
tively.
We chose H⫽3⫻104 G and T⫽20 mK, typical for
quantum computing architectures.3,7 The coupling constants
for of the localized spin on P donor in Si and Ge have been
evaluated by Roth10 and Hasegawa.11 For Si: A 2 ⯝102 and
B 2 ⯝10⫺1 . Other parameters entering Eqs. 共9兲 and 共10兲 for Si
are a B ⫽2.0⫻10⫺9 m, ␳ ⫽2.3⫻103 kg/m3 , s t ⫽5.4
⫻103 m/s, s l ⫽0.93⫻104 m/s, and g * ⫽1.98. It can be
seen from Fig. 1 that the initial, nonexponential coherence
drop on a picosecond scale 共see the inset兲 is followed by
exponential, relaxation driven decay ( ␶ D ⬃1 s for Si兲. The
initial drop of coherence, or the phase uncertainty that oc-
PHYSICAL REVIEW B 65 245213
FIG. 2. Dependence of the spin off-diagonal density matrix el-
ement on time for P donor in Ge.
冉 បs i
2a B k B T 冊
x ,
curs, essentially, due to the nonresonant processes, is quite
small in case of silicon, of order 10⫺9 . Importantly, the pro-
cess of initial decoherence is very fast as it occurs on a time
共10a兲
scale associated with the spatial size of the localized state t
⬃a B /s l,t . Therefore such phase uncertainty is practically al-
ways present. We argue that this effect is common for most
phonon-assisted spin decoherence mechanisms and should
共10b兲
be accounted for when evaluating whether a system is a good
candidate for quantum computing. Our results indicate that
the P donors in Si are excellent candidates for qubits of a
quantum computer as both the phase uncertainty and the
spin-flip rate satisfy the 10⫺5 ‘‘clock speed to decoherence’’
criterion16 for reliable quantum computing.
The case of P donors in Ge differs significantly from Si,
see Fig. 2. Here the coupling of the localized spin to phonons
is much stronger because of stronger spin-orbit coupling and
different symmetry of the conduction band.10,11 For P donor
in Ge A 2 ⯝0 and B 2 ⯝106 , a B ⫽4.0⫻10⫺9 m, ␳ ⫽5.3
⫻103 kg/m3 , s t ⫽3.28⫻103 m/s, s l ⫽5.37⫻103 m/s, and
g * ⫽1.56. From Fig. 2 one notes that the phase uncertainty is
of order 10⫺5 and ␶ D ⬃10⫺7 s. Thus, our results indicate
that Ge:P is a less preferable material for quantum computing
applications as compared to Si:P.
. 共11兲 We also note that our Eq. 共11兲 for the decoherence driven
by the resonant emission/absorption processes has H 5 depen-
dence on the applied magnetic field, instead of H 4 , obtained
by Roth10 and Hasegawa.11 This comes from the fact that we
are interested in a very low, effectively zero-temperature re-
gime. Indeed, for high temperatures in Eq. 共11兲,
coth(␮BH/kBT)⯝(kBT/␮BH), and we recover the H 4 depen-
dence.
One can estimate decoherence due to the interaction of
the donor electron spin with optical phonons as well. Optical
phonons do not contribute to the spin flip involving relax-
ation processes due to the presence of the gap ␻ 0 in their
spectrum ( ␻ 0 is optical phonon frequency at 0 wave vector,
␻ 0 Ⰷ ␮ B H). In order to estimate decoherence produced by
the optical phonons, we derive the effective coupling of the
donor electron spin with optical deformation. The procedure
245213-3
MOZYRSKY, KOGAN, GORSHKOV, AND BERMAN
is identical to the derivation of the Hamiltonian 共1兲 for inter-
action with acoustic phonons.10,11 Then, for the order of
magnitude estimates, we obtain that the coupling of spin ␴ to
optical phonons is given by the following interaction: Hopt
⬃D ␮ B H ␴ 具 W opt典 / ␦ , where dimensionless constant D is of
order (g l ⫺g t ), the difference between the longitudinal and
transverse to the field g-factors for the donor electron spin,
具 W opt典 is the matrix element of the optical deformation po-
tential taken between donor electron effective mass ground
state functions, and ␦ is the energy splitting between the
orbital singlet ground state and the excited doublet states of
the donor. ␦ ⬃10⫺2 eV for Si and ␦ ⬃5⫻10⫺3 eV for Ge.17
The decoherence due to the above interaction can be evalu-
ated using Eqs. 共9兲 and 共10兲. One obtains that the phase
uncertainty due to the optical phonons for Si is of order
10⫺11, while for Ge it is of order 10⫺7 . Thus, optical
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245213-4
PHYSICAL REVIEW B 65 245213
phonons create effectively no decoherence for the localized
electron spins in Si and Ge.
Another issue not considered here is the effect of the in-
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state quantum computing architectures require positioning of
the qubit in the vicinity of semiconductor-semiconductor or
semiconductor-vacuum boundary for control and measure-
ment of the qubit state. Such additional inversion symmetry
breaking can enhance decoherence and should be subjected
to detailed study.
D.M. is thankful to V. Privman for stimulating discussions
of quantum computing architectures and mathematical as-
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