English

The limit of spin lifetime in solid-state electronic spins

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2020-04-09 v1 Materials Science Quantum Physics

Abstract

The development of spin qubits for quantum technologies requires their protection from the main source of finite-temperature decoherence: atomic vibrations. Here we eliminate one of the main barriers to the progress in this field by providing a complete first-principles picture of spin relaxation that includes up to two-phonon processes. Our method is based on machine learning and electronic structure theory and makes the prediction of spin lifetime in realistic systems feasible. We study a prototypical vanadium-based molecular qubit and reveal that the spin lifetime at high temperature is limited by Raman processes due to a small number of THz intra-molecular vibrations. These findings effectively change the conventional understanding of spin relaxation in this class of materials and open new avenues for the rational design of long-living spin systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2004.04007,
  title  = {The limit of spin lifetime in solid-state electronic spins},
  author = {Alessandro Lunghi and Stefano Sanvito},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.04007},
  year   = {2020}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-23T14:44:17.502Z