Giant anisotropy of spin relaxation and spin-valley mixing in a silicon quantum dot

In silicon quantum dots (QDs), at a certain magnetic field commonly referred to as the "hot spot", the electron spin relaxation rate (T_1^(-1)) can be drastically enhanced due to strong spin-valley mixing. Here, we experimentally find that with a valley splitting of 78.2 ${\pm}$ 1.6 $μ$eV, this hot spot in spin relaxation can be suppressed by more than 2 orders of magnitude when the in-plane magnetic field is oriented at an optimal angle, about 9° from the [100] sample plane. This directional anisotropy exhibits a sinusoidal modulation with a 180° periodicity. We explain the magnitude and phase of this modulation using a model that accounts for both spin-valley mixing and intravalley spin-orbit mixing. The generality of this phenomenon is also confirmed by tuning the electric field and the valley splitting up to 268.2 ${\pm}$ 0.7 $μ$eV.

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