Abstract
Spin-active color centers in solids show good performance for quantum technologies. Several transition-metal defects in SiC offer compatibility with telecom and semiconductor industries. However, whether their strong spin–orbit coupling degrades their spin lifetimes is not clear. We show that a combination of a crystal-field with axial symmetry and spin–orbit coupling leads to a suppression of spin–lattice and spin–spin interactions, resulting in remarkably slow spin relaxation. Our optical measurements on an ensemble of Mo impurities in SiC show a spin lifetime T 1 of 2.4 s at 2 K.
Highlights
Spin-active color centers in semiconductors have attracted significant interest for the implementation of quantum technologies, since several of these systems combine long-lived spin states with a bright optical interface [1,2,3,4]
We show that a combination of a crystal-field with axial symmetry and spin–orbit coupling leads to a suppression of spin–lattice and spin–spin interactions, resulting in remarkably slow spin relaxation
We report here on slow spin relaxation with T1 exceeding seconds below 4 K for a molybdenum defect ensemble in 6H–SiC, indicating that the defect spin is surprisingly robust with respect to spin relaxation despite the presence of strong spin–orbit coupling (SOC)
Summary
Spin-active color centers in semiconductors have attracted significant interest for the implementation of quantum technologies, since several of these systems combine long-lived spin states with a bright optical interface [1,2,3,4]. The electronic and spin properties of these defects derive largely from the character of the d-orbitals of the TM under the action of a crystal field determined by the lattice site [18,19,20]. The presence of a heavy atom in the defect implies that spin–orbit coupling (SOC) plays a significant role in the electronic structure of these color centers. As widely demonstrated by the solid state spin–qubit community, combining favorable spin properties and strong SOC can be challenging [17, 21,22,23]
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