Magnetic field evolution of spin blockade in Ge/Si nanowire double quantum dots

Abstract

We perform transport measurements on double quantum dots defined in Ge/Si core/shell nanowires and focus on Pauli spin blockade in the regime where tens of holes occupy each dot. We identify spin blockade through the magnetic field dependence of leakage current. We find both a dip and a peak in the leakage current at zero field. We analyze this behavior in terms of the quantum dot parameters such as coupling to the leads, interdot tunnel coupling as well as spin-orbit interaction. We find a lower bound for spin-orbit interaction with $l_{\rm so}=500$ nm. We also extract large and anisotropic effective Land$\rm \acute{e}$ g-factors, with larger g-factors in the direction perpendicular to the nanowire axis in agreement with previous studies and experiments but with larger values reported here.