We present measurements of resonant tunneling through discrete energy levels of a silicon double quantum dot formed in a thin silicon-on-insulator layer. In the absence of piezoelectric phonon coupling, spontaneous phonon emission with deformation-potential coupling accounts for inelastic tunneling through the ground states of the two dots. Such transport measurements enable us to observe a Pauli spin blockade due to effective two-electron spin-triplet correlations, evident in a distinct bias-polarity dependence of resonant tunneling through the ground states. The blockade is lifted by the excited-state resonance by virtue of efficient phonon emission between the ground states. Our experiment demonstrates considerable potential for investigating silicon-based spin dynamics and spin-based quantum information processing.
@article{arxiv.0707.3513,
title = {Pauli-Spin-Blockade Transport through a Silicon Double Quantum Dot},
author = {H. W. Liu and T. Fujisawa and Y. Ono and H. Inokawa and A. Fujiwara and K. Takashina and Y. Hirayama},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0707.3513},
year = {2009}
}