All-Electrical Measurement of the Triplet-Singlet Spin Relaxation Time in Self-Assembled Quantum Dots

We have measured the spin relaxation time of an excited two-electron spin-triplet state into its singlet ground state in self-assembled InAs/GaAs quantum dots. We use a time-resolved measurement scheme that combines transconductance spectroscopy with spin-to-charge conversion to address the |s↑,p↑〉 triplet state, where one electron is in the quantum dot s-shell and a second one in the p-shell. The evaluation of the state-selective tunneling times from the dots into a nearby two-dimensional electron gas allows us to determine the s- and p-shell occupation and extract the relaxation time from a rate equation model. A comparably long triplet-to-singlet spin relaxation time of 25 μs is found.