Very recently, the electric dipole spin resonance (EDSR) of single electrons in quantum dots was discovered by three independent experimental groups. Remarkably, these observations revealed three different mechanisms of EDSR: coupling of electron spin to its momentum (spin-orbit), to the operator of its position (inhomogeneous Zeeman coupling), and to the hyperfine Overhauser field of nuclear spins. In this paper, I present a unified microscopic theory of these resonances in quantum dots. A mean field theory, derived for all three mechanisms and based on retaining only two-spin correlators, justifies applying macroscopic description of nuclear polarization to the EDSR theory. In the framework of the mean field theory, a fundamental difference in the time dependence of EDSR inherent of these mechanisms is revealed; it changes from the Rabi-type oscillations to a nearly monotonic growth. The theory provides a regular procedure to account for the higher nuclear-spin correlators that become of importance for a wider time span. For the hyperfine mechanism, they change the asymptotic behavior of EDSR dramatically. The theory also allows evaluating the effect of electron-spin dynamics on the effective coupling between nuclear spins.

• Received 16 July 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.78.195302