Time-resolved dynamics of shallow acceptor transitions in silicon

N. Q. Vinh, B. Redlich, A. F. G. van der Meer, Carl Pidgeon, P. T. Greenland, S. A. Lynch, G Aeppli, B. N. Murdin

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26 Citations (Scopus)
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Abstract

Shallow group V donors in silicon may be thought of as hydrogen-like, and shallow acceptors are similarly described by effective mass theory with similar energy scales, which implies that donor and acceptor excitations shoud be just as long lived. Yet, spectral widths of acceptors are considerably wider. We have measured the orbital dynamics of acceptors in silicon using time-domain spectroscopy with a free electron laser. Both the population and coherence lifetimes for acceptors in natural silicon are substantially longer - e.g. of ~ 60 ps for boron - than implied by the spectral line widths; our experiments also established the recombination time for ionized acceptors to be, at of ~ 500 ps, nearly an order of magnitude longer. We show that there are no extra sources of decoherence introduced ty the host crystal, other than the population relaxation. In this sense the crystal acts as an atom trap, and by introducing quantum coherent control of acceptors to that previously extablished for donors, we open the way to quantum chemistry experiments on trapped multi-species molecules.
Original languageEnglish
Article number011019
Number of pages6
JournalPhysical Review X
Volume3
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Mar 2013

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