Home › Content

Asymmetric optical nuclear spin pumping in a single uncharged quantum dot

Mon, 2011-02-14 19:23 - Daniel Rudolph
Printer-friendly versionSend by emailPDF version
Date: 
2010-09-21
Author(s): 

F. Klotz, V. Jovanov, J. Kierig, E. C. Clark, M. Bichler, G. Abstreiter, M. S. Brandt, J. J. Finley, H. Schwager, G. Giedke

Reference: 

Phys. Rev. B 82, 121307(R) (2010)

URL: 

http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevB.82.121307

Highly asymmetric dynamic nuclear spin pumping is observed in a single self-assembled InGaAs quantum dot subject to resonant optical excitation of the neutral exciton transition. A large maximum polarization of 54% is observed and the effect is found to be much stronger upon pumping of the higher energy Zeeman level. Time-resolved measurements allow us to directly monitor the buildup of the nuclear spin polarization in real time and to quantitatively study the dynamics of the process. A strong dependence of the observed dynamic nuclear polarization on the applied magnetic field is found, with resonances in the pumping efficiency observed for particular magnetic fields. We develop a model that accounts for the observed behavior, where the pumping of the nuclear spin system is due to hyperfine-mediated spin-flip transitions between the states of the neutral exciton manifold.