Landau-Zener-Stückelberg interference in coherent charge oscillations of a one-electron double quantum dot

Landau-Zener (LZ) transition has received renewed interest as an alternative approach to control single-qubit states. An LZ transition occurs when a system passes through an avoided crossing that arises from quantum mechanical coupling of two levels, taking the system to a coherent superposition of the two states. Then, multiple LZ transitions induce interference known as Landau-Zener-Stückelberg (LZS) interference whose amplitude strongly depends on the velocity or adiabaticity of the passage. Here, we study the roles of LZ transitions and LZS interference in coherent charge oscillations of a one-electron semiconductor double quantum dot by time-domain experiments using standard rectangular voltage pulses. By employing density matrix simulations, we show that, in the standard setup using rectangular pulses, even a small distortion of the pulse can give rise to LZ transitions and hence LZS interference, which significantly enhances the measured oscillation amplitude. We further show experimentally that the nature of the coherent charge oscillations changes from Rabi-type to LZS oscillations with increasing pulse distortion. Our results thus demonstrate that it is essential to take into account LZS interference for both precise control of charge qubits and correct interpretation of measurement results.