We study theoretically the interaction between the charge dynamics of a few-electron double quantum dot and a capacitively-coupled AFM cantilever, a setup realized in several recent experiments. We demonstrate that the dot-induced frequency shift and damping of the cantilever can be used as a sensitive probe of coherent inter-dot tunnelling, and that these effects can be used to quantitatively extract both the magnitude of the coherent interdot tunneling and (in some cases) the value of the double-dot T_1 time. We also show how the adiabatic modulation of the double-dot eigenstates by the cantilever motion leads to new effects compared to the single-dot case.
@article{arxiv.1109.1445,
title = {Mechanically probing coherent tunnelling in a double quantum dot},
author = {Jamie Gardner and Steven D. Bennett and Aashish A. Clerk},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1109.1445},
year = {2011}
}