Measurement of Fast Electron Spin Relaxation Times with Atomic Resolution
Top Cited Papers
- 24 September 2010
- journal article
- other
- Published by American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Science
- Vol. 329 (5999), 1628-1630
- https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1191688
Abstract
Single spins in solid-state systems are often considered prime candidates for the storage of quantum information, and their interaction with the environment the main limiting factor for the realization of such schemes. The lifetime of an excited spin state is a sensitive measure of this interaction, but extending the spatial resolution of spin relaxation measurements to the atomic scale has been a challenge. We show how a scanning tunneling microscope can measure electron spin relaxation times of individual atoms adsorbed on a surface using an all-electronic pump-probe measurement scheme. The spin relaxation times of individual Fe-Cu dimers were found to vary between 50 and 250 nanoseconds. Our method can in principle be generalized to monitor the temporal evolution of other dynamical systems.Keywords
This publication has 27 references indexed in Scilit:
- Adsorption-Induced Switching of Magnetic Anisotropy in a Single Iron(II) Phthalocyanine Molecule on an Oxidized Cu(110) SurfacePhysical Review Letters, 2009
- Probing Superexchange Interaction in Molecular Magnets by Spin-Flip Spectroscopy and MicroscopyPhysical Review Letters, 2008
- Nanoscale imaging magnetometry with diamond spins under ambient conditionsNature, 2008
- Incommensurability and atomic structure of: A scanning tunneling microscopy studyPhysical Review B, 2008
- Dynamic personalities of proteinsNature, 2007
- Making molecular machines workNature Nanotechnology, 2006
- Scanning probe microscopes go video rate and beyondReview of Scientific Instruments, 2005
- Strongly coverage-dependent excitations of adsorbed molecular hydrogenPhysical Review B, 2005
- Lattice deformation and strain-dependent atom processes at nitrogen-modified Cu(001) surfacesProgress in Surface Science, 2004
- Picosecond Resolution in Scanning Tunneling MicroscopyScience, 1993