Submillisecond Hyperpolarization of Nuclear Spins in Silicon

Felix Hoehne, Lukas Dreher, David P. Franke, Martin Stutzmann, Leonid S. Vlasenko, Kohei M. Itoh, Martin S. Brandt
2015 Physical Review Letters  
In this Letter, we devise a fast and effective nuclear spin hyperpolarization scheme, which is, in principle, magnetic field independent. We use this scheme to experimentally demonstrate polarizations of up to 66% for phosphorus donor nuclear spins in bulk silicon, which are created within less than 100 μs in a magnetic field of 0.35 T at a temperature of 5 K. The polarization scheme is based on a spin-dependent recombination process via weakly coupled spin pairs, for which the recombination
more » ... e constant strongly depends on the relative orientation of the two spins. We further use this scheme to measure the nuclear spin relaxation time and find a value of ∼100 ms under illumination, in good agreement with the value calculated for nuclear spin flips induced by repeated ionization and deionization processes.
doi:10.1103/physrevlett.114.117602 pmid:25839308 fatcat:kyharzycxjb7lkdnqusvlvexyu