| AVS 60th International Symposium and Exhibition | |
| Magnetic Interfaces and Nanostructures | Tuesday Sessions |
| Session MI+EM-TuM |
| Session: | Spintronics and Magnetoelectrics |
| Presenter: | D. Awschalom, University of California, Santa Barbara |
| Authors: | D. Awschalom, University of California, Santa Barbara W.F. Koehl, University of Chicago A.L. Falk, University of Chicago G. Calusine, University of California, Santa Barbara F.J. Heremans, University of Chicago V.V. Dobrovitski, Ames Laboratory, Iowa State University A. Politi, University of California, Santa Barbara |
| Correspondent: | Click to Email |
Semiconductor defects, while generally considered undesirable in traditional electronic devices, can confine isolated electronic spins and are promising candidates for solid-state quantum bits (qubits) [1]. Alongside research efforts focusing on nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers in diamond, an alternative approach seeks to identify and control new spin systems with an expanded set of technological capabilities, a strategy that could ultimately lead to “designer” spins with tailored properties for future quantum information processing. We discuss recent experimental results identifying such spin systems in the 4H, 6H, and 3C crystal polymorphs of silicon carbide (SiC) [2,3]. Using infrared light at near-telecom wavelengths and gigahertz microwaves, we show that these spin states can be coherently addressed at temperatures ranging from 20 K to room temperature. Long spin coherence times allow us to use double electron-electron resonance to measure magnetic dipole interactions between spin ensembles in inequivalent lattice sites of the same crystal. Since the inequivalent spin states have distinct optical and spin transition energies, these interactions could lead to engineered dipole-coupled networks of separately addressable qubits. Together with the availability of industrial scale crystal growth and advanced microfabrication techniques for SiC, these results make this system a promising platform for photonic, spintronic, and quantum information applications that merge quantum degrees of freedom with classical electronic and optical technologies.
This work is funded by the AFOSR and DARPA.
[1] J. R. Weber, W. F. Koehl, J. B. Varley, A. Janotti, B. B. Buckley, C. G. Van de Walle, and D. D. Awschalom, Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA107, 8513 (2010).
[2] W. F. Koehl, B. B. Buckley, F. J. Heremans, G. Calusine, and D. D. Awschalom, Nature479, 84 (2011); A. Dzurak, Nature 479, 47 (2011).
[3] A. L. Falk, B. B. Buckley, G. Calusine, W. F. Koehl, V. V. Dobrovitski, A. Politi, C. A. Zorman, P. X.-L. Feng, and D. D. Awschalom, Nature Comm. 4, 1819 (2013).