Atomic-like spin noise in solid-state demonstrated with manganese in cadmium telluride.

S Cronenberger,D Scalbert,J Cibert,D Ferrand,H Boukari

doi:10.1038/ncomms9121

Abstract

Spin noise spectroscopy is an optical technique which can probe spin resonances non-perturbatively. First applied to atomic vapours, it revealed detailed information about nuclear magnetism and the hyperfine interaction. In solids, this approach has been limited to carriers in semiconductor heterostructures. Here we show that atomic-like spin fluctuations of Mn ions diluted in CdTe (bulk and quantum wells) can be detected through the Kerr rotation associated to excitonic transitions. Zeeman transitions within and between hyperfine multiplets are clearly observed in zero and small magnetic fields and reveal the local symmetry because of crystal field and strain. The linewidths of these resonances are close to the dipolar limit. The sensitivity is high enough to open the way towards the detection of a few spins in systems where the decoherence due to nuclear spins can be suppressed by isotopic enrichment, and towards spin resonance microscopy with important applications in biology and materials science.

Highlights

Spin noise spectroscopy is an optical technique which can probe spin resonances non-perturbatively
Electron spin resonances can be described by a spin Hamiltonian, in which the allowed terms are dictated by symmetry considerations
We emphasize that the present measurements can be extended to higher magnetic fields by using large bandwidth spin noise spectroscopy techniques[18,19]

Summary

Introduction

Spin noise spectroscopy is an optical technique which can probe spin resonances non-perturbatively. First applied to atomic vapours, it revealed detailed information about nuclear magnetism and the hyperfine interaction In solids, this approach has been limited to carriers in semiconductor heterostructures. We introduce the atom-exciton-light interface in solids, to transfer the atomic spin noise to light polarization in a system where the atomic spin is not directly coupled to light: in the case of Mn in CdTe which we use as a testbed, the exciton mediates the coupling between atoms and light This interface is based on the sp-d exchange interaction, which couples the manganese ions to the carriers. We show that the spin noise spectra keep their atomic nature despite the strong hybridization between the orbitals of manganese ion and the crystal This opens new possibilities by transposing in solids the method of quantum physics, based on the atom-light interface

Methods

Results

Conclusion