Understanding interactions between orbital and valley quantum states in silicon nanodevices is crucial in assessing the prospects of spin-based qubits. We study the energy spectra of a few-electron silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor quantum dot using dynamic charge sensing and pulsed-voltage spectroscopy. The occupancy of the quantum dot is probed down to the single-electron level using a nearby single-electron transistor as a charge sensor. The energy of the first orbital excited state is found to decrease rapidly as the electron occupancy increases from N=1 to 4. By monitoring the sequential spin filling of the dot we extract a valley splitting of ~230 {\mu}eV, irrespective of electron number. This indicates that favorable conditions for qubit operation are in place in the few-electron regime.
@article{arxiv.1204.0843,
title = {Orbital and valley state spectra of a few-electron silicon quantum dot},
author = {C. H. Yang and W. H. Lim and N. S. Lai and A. Rossi and A. Morello and A. S. Dzurak},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1204.0843},
year = {2012}
}