Donor spin qubit in silicon
A phosphorus (31P) donor in silicon is, almost literally, the equivalent of a hydrogen atom in vacuum. It possesses electron and nuclear spins 1/2 which act as natural qubits, and the host material can be isotopically purified to be almost perfectly free of any nuclear spin carrying isotopes, ensuring extraordinary coherence times. Silicon – the semiconductor underpinning the whole modern computing era – is also the perfect material for quantum information hardware [Kane1998].
In our labs, we have demonstrated that both the electron [Pla2012] and the nuclear [Pla2013] spin of a single, ion-implanted31P atom can be read out in single-shot [Morello2010, VanDonkelaar2015] with high fidelity, through a nanoelectronic device compatible with standard semiconductor fabrication(ion-implantation done in collaboration with David N. Jamieson and Jeffrey C. McCallum from the University of Melbourne). High-frequency microwave [Dehollain2013] pulses can be used to prepare arbitrary quantum states of the spin qubits, with fidelity in excess of 99.9% [Muhonen2015, Dehollain2016].
Our experiment on the 31P nucleus has established the record coherence time (35 seconds) for any single qubit in the solid state [Muhonen2014], by making use of an isotopically enriched 28Si epilayer [Itoh2014](isotopically engineered substrates supplied by Kohei M. Itoh from Keio University).
The exceptional quality of these qubits has allowed us to perform a variety of more complex quantum experiments. Recent results include the electrical control of a spin in a continuous microwave field (Kane’s A-gate) [Laucht2016],
the violation of Bell’s inequality in the electron-nuclear two-qubit system [Dehollain2016],the operation of a spin qubit in the noisy environment of a cryogen-free dilution refrigerator [Kalra, Rev Sci Instr 2016], using dressing techniques to create a new hybrid qubit with extended coherence times and alternative control mechanisms [Laucht2017, Laucht2016] a nuclear spin quantum memory [Freer2017], and weak measurements and quantum steering [Muhonen].
Currently, we are trying to improve these outstanding qubits even further. We are performing T1 measurements to investigate the low-B0-field limit of the electron spin lifetime, looking at the effects of co-tunneling and evanescent wave Johnson noise. We also want to improve our electron spin initialization fidelity using FPGA-based, real-time feedback during the initialization phase. Further experiments look at exchanged-coupled donor-donor pairs and the realization of conditional 2-qubit quantum gates [Kalra2014].
![Device scheme for coupling two distant flip-flop qubits via electric dipole-dipole interactions. Indicated are the dipole field lines Edip produced by the left qubit. [Tosi, arXiv:1405.1231] Device scheme for coupling two distant flip-flop qubits via electric dipole-dipole interactions. Indicated are the dipole field lines Edip produced by the left qubit. [Tosi, arXiv:1405.1231]](/sites/fqt/files/uploads/SpinQubit/ElectricDipole.png)