Optically dressed magnetic atoms

The continuing decrease of the size of the structures used in semiconductor electronics and in magnetic information- storage devices has dramatically reduced the number of atoms necessary to process and store one bit of information : an individual magnetic atom would represent the ultimate size limit for storing and processing information. Towards this goal, we have demonstrated that an individual manganese atom embedded in a semiconductor quantum dot may act as a spin-based memory. Further, a pair of mn atoms can act as a prototype of a pair of coupled memory units. We can exploit the optical absorption and emission of the quantum dot in order to initialize and to read out the spin state of the magnetic atoms. under resonant optical excitation, we can enter the “strong coupling” regime where hybrid states of matter and the electromagnetic field are created, and this could be used for a coherent, optical “manipula- tion” of the mn spin. Full text

Institut Néel Grenoble

Optically dressed magnetic atoms

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