Quantum Institute: Visitor Schedule

The Quantum Lunch is regularly held on Thursdays in the Theoretical Division Conference Room, TA-3, Building 123, Room 121.
For more information, contact Diego Dalvit.

December 20, 2006
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM, Wednesday

Alexander Shnirman,
University of Karlsruhe

Geometrical Spin Dephasing in Quantum Dots

Abstract

We study the relaxation and dephasing of electron spins in quantum dots that is mediated by spin-orbit coupling, and show that higher order contributions provide a relaxation mechanism that dominates in the limit of low magnetic fields. This relaxation is of geometrical origin. At zero magnetic field the dephasing is due to a random Berry phase induced by the noise. We further observe that in the low-field limit the relaxation processes are dominated by coupling to electron-hole excitations and possibly 1/f noise rather than by phonons.