Identification of the I$_{10}$ Donor in ZnO as a Sn--Li Complex with Large Hyperfine Interaction
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Quantum Physics arXiv:2603.05615 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 5 Mar 2026] Title:Identification of the I$_{10}$ Donor in ZnO as a Sn--Li Complex with Large Hyperfine Interaction Authors:Xingyi Wang, Sai Mu, Jeong Rae Kim, Ethan R. Hansen, Yaser Silani, Lasse Vines, Joseph Falson, Chris G. Van de Walle, Kai-Mei C. Fu View a PDF of the paper titled Identification of the I$_{10}$ Donor in ZnO as a Sn--Li Complex with Large Hyperfine Interaction, by Xingyi Wang and 8 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Donor impurities in wide direct band gap semiconductors provide a promising platform for spin--photon quantum technologies by combining a donor spin qubit with optically addressable transitions. In ZnO, the shallow donor with the largest reported binding energy has long been associated with the I$_{10}$ bound exciton line, but its microscopic origin has remained unresolved. Here we demonstrate the controlled formation and identification of this donor as a Sn--Li complex through a combination of ion implantation, annealing, optical spectroscopy, and first-principles calculations. Resonant two-laser coherent population trapping measurements reveal an electron--$^{119}$Sn hyperfine interaction of $392 \pm 15$\,MHz, establishing a coupled electron--spin--1/2, nuclear--spin--1/2 system with one of the largest hyperfine couplings reported for shallow donors in semiconductors. Density functional theory calculations show that a nearest-neighbor Sn$_{\mathrm{Zn}}$--Li$_{\mathrm{Zn}}$ complex has favorable formation energetics, donor character with the electron localized on Sn, and an extrapolated hyperfine interaction consistent with experiment. The large donor binding energy and excited-state structure indicate enhanced thermal robustness of the optical transition relative to conventional group--III donors, while the strong hyperfine interaction enables fast electron--nuclear spin control and prospects for direct nuclear--spin--photon interfaces. We further observe efficient optically induced nuclear spin polarization, highlighting a path toward nuclear spin initialization. More broadly, our results reveal how a donor--acceptor complex can access previously unexplored regimes of shallow donor physics, extending the design space of quantum defects beyond isolated substitutional dopants. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2603.05615 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2603.05615v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2603.05615 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Kai-Mei C. Fu [view email] [v1] Thu, 5 Mar 2026 19:18:21 UTC (3,072 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Identification of the I$_{10}$ Donor in ZnO as a Sn--Li Complex with Large Hyperfine Interaction, by Xingyi Wang and 8 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-03 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)