TY - JOUR AU - Volk, Christian AU - Neumann, Christoph AU - Kazarski, Sebastian AU - Fringes, Stefan AU - Engels, Stephan AU - Haupt, Federica AU - Müller, André AU - Stampfer, Christoph TI - Probing relaxation times in graphene quantum dots JO - Nature Communications VL - 4 SN - 2041-1723 CY - London PB - Nature Publishing Group M1 - FZJ-2015-02801 SP - 1753 PY - 2013 AB - Graphene quantum dots are attractive candidates for solid-state quantum bits. In fact, the predicted weak spin-orbit and hyperfine interaction promise spin qubits with long coherence times. Graphene quantum dots have been extensively investigated with respect to their excitation spectrum, spin-filling sequence and electron-hole crossover. However, their relaxation dynamics remain largely unexplored. This is mainly due to challenges in device fabrication, in particular concerning the control of carrier confinement and the tunability of the tunnelling barriers, both crucial to experimentally investigate decoherence times. Here we report pulsed-gate transient current spectroscopy and relaxation time measurements of excited states in graphene quantum dots. This is achieved by an advanced device design that allows to individually tune the tunnelling barriers down to the low megahertz regime, while monitoring their asymmetry. Measuring transient currents through electronic excited states, we estimate a lower bound for charge relaxation times on the order of 60–100 ns. LB - PUB:(DE-HGF)16 UR - <Go to ISI:>//WOS:000318872100110 C6 - pmid:23612294 DO - DOI:10.1038/ncomms2738 UR - https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/189771 ER -