Characterization of a gate-defined double quantum dot in a Si/SiGe nanomembrane

High-Ge-Content SiGe Alloy Single Crystals Using the Nanomembrane Platform

The growth of single crystals of Ge-rich SiGe alloys in an extended composition range is demonstrated using the nanomembrane (NM) platform and III-V growth substrates. Thin films of high-Ge-content SiGe films are grown on GaAs(001) to below the kinetic critical thickness and released from the growth substrate by selectively etching a release layer to relax the strain. The resulting crystalline nanomembranes at the natural lattice constant of the alloy are transferred to a new host and epitaxially overgrown at similar compositions to make a thicker single crystal. Straightforward critical-thickness calculations demonstrate that a very wide range of group IV alloys, including those involving Sn, can be fabricated using the NM platform and the proper choice of III-V substrate. Motivations for making new group IV alloys center on band gap engineering for the development of novel group IV optoelectronic structures and devices.

Semiconductor Nanomembrane Materials for High-Performance Soft Electronic Devices

The development of methods to synthesize and physically manipulate extremely thin, single-crystalline inorganic semiconductor materials, so-called nanomembranes, has led to an almost explosive growth of research worldwide into uniquely enabled opportunities for their use in new "soft" and other unconventional form factors for high-performance electronics. The unique properties that nanomembranes afford, such as their flexibility and lightweight characteristics, allow them to be integrated into electronic and optoelectronic devices that, in turn, adopt these unique attributes. For example, nanomembrane devices are able to make conformal contact to curvilinear surfaces and manipulate strain to induce the self-assembly of various 3D nano/micro device architectures. Further, thin semiconductor materials (e.g., Si-nanomembranes, transition metal dichalcogenides, and phosphorene) are subject to the impacts of quantum and other size-dependent effects that in turn enable the manipulation of their bandgaps and the properties of electronic and optoelectronic devices fabricated from them. In this Perspective, nanomembrane synthesis techniques and exemplary applications of their use are examined. We specifically describe nanomembrane chemistry exploiting high-performance materials, along with precise/high-throughput techniques for their manipulation that exemplify their growing capacities to shape outcomes in technology. Prominent challenges in the chemistry of these materials are presented along with future directions that might guide the development of next generation nanomembrane-based devices.

Three-electron spin qubits

The goal of this article is to review the progress of three-electron spin qubits from their inception to the state of the art. We direct the main focus towards the exchange-only qubit (Bacon et al 2000 Phys. Rev. Lett. 85 1758-61, DiVincenzo et al 2000 Nature 408 339) and its derived versions, e.g. the resonant exchange (RX) qubit, but we also discuss other qubit implementations using three electron spins. For each three-spin qubit we describe the qubit model, the envisioned physical realization, the implementations of single-qubit operations, as well as the read-out and initialization schemes. Two-qubit gates and decoherence properties are discussed for the RX qubit and the exchange-only qubit, thereby completing the list of requirements for quantum computation for a viable candidate qubit implementation. We start by describing the full system of three electrons in a triple quantum dot, then discuss the charge-stability diagram, restricting ourselves to the relevant subsystem, introduce the qubit states, and discuss important transitions to other charge states (Russ et al 2016 Phys. Rev. B 94 165411). Introducing the various qubit implementations, we begin with the exchange-only qubit (DiVincenzo et al 2000 Nature 408 339, Laird et al 2010 Phys. Rev. B 82 075403), followed by the RX qubit (Medford et al 2013 Phys. Rev. Lett. 111 050501, Taylor et al 2013 Phys. Rev. Lett. 111 050502), the spin-charge qubit (Kyriakidis and Burkard 2007 Phys. Rev. B 75 115324), and the hybrid qubit (Shi et al 2012 Phys. Rev. Lett. 108 140503, Koh et al 2012 Phys. Rev. Lett. 109 250503, Cao et al 2016 Phys. Rev. Lett. 116 086801, Thorgrimsson et al 2016 arXiv:1611.04945). The main focus will be on the exchange-only qubit and its modification, the RX qubit, whose single-qubit operations are realized by driving the qubit at its resonant frequency in the microwave range similar to electron spin resonance. Two different types of two-qubit operations are presented for the exchange-only qubits which can be divided into short-ranged and long-ranged interactions. Both of these interaction types are expected to be necessary in a large-scale quantum computer. The short-ranged interactions use the exchange coupling by placing qubits next to each other and applying exchange-pulses (DiVincenzo et al 2000 Nature 408 339, Fong and Wandzura 2011 Quantum Inf. Comput. 11 1003, Setiawan et al 2014 Phys. Rev. B 89 085314, Zeuch et al 2014 Phys. Rev. B 90 045306, Doherty and Wardrop 2013 Phys. Rev. Lett. 111 050503, Shim and Tahan 2016 Phys. Rev. B 93 121410), while the long-ranged interactions use the photons of a superconducting microwave cavity as a mediator in order to couple two qubits over long distances (Russ and Burkard 2015 Phys. Rev. B 92 205412, Srinivasa et al 2016 Phys. Rev. B 94 205421). The nature of the three-electron qubit states each having the same total spin and total spin in z-direction (same Zeeman energy) provides a natural protection against several sources of noise (DiVincenzo et al 2000 Nature 408 339, Taylor et al 2013 Phys. Rev. Lett. 111 050502, Kempe et al 2001 Phys. Rev. A 63 042307, Russ and Burkard 2015 Phys. Rev. B 91 235411). The price to pay for this advantage is an increase in gate complexity. We also take into account the decoherence of the qubit through the influence of magnetic noise (Ladd 2012 Phys. Rev. B 86 125408, Mehl and DiVincenzo 2013 Phys. Rev. B 87 195309, Hung et al 2014 Phys. Rev. B 90 045308), in particular dephasing due to the presence of nuclear spins, as well as dephasing due to charge noise (Medford et al 2013 Phys. Rev. Lett. 111 050501, Taylor et al 2013 Phys. Rev. Lett. 111 050502, Shim and Tahan 2016 Phys. Rev. B 93 121410, Russ and Burkard 2015 Phys. Rev. B 91 235411, Fei et al 2015 Phys. Rev. B 91 205434), fluctuations of the energy levels on each dot due to noisy gate voltages or the environment. Several techniques are discussed which partly decouple the qubit from magnetic noise (Setiawan et al 2014 Phys. Rev. B 89 085314, West and Fong 2012 New J. Phys. 14 083002, Rohling and Burkard 2016 Phys. Rev. B 93 205434) while for charge noise it is shown that it is favorable to operate the qubit on the so-called '(double) sweet spots' (Taylor et al 2013 Phys. Rev. Lett. 111 050502, Shim and Tahan 2016 Phys. Rev. B 93 121410, Russ and Burkard 2015 Phys. Rev. B 91 235411, Fei et al 2015 Phys. Rev. B 91 205434, Malinowski et al 2017 arXiv: 1704.01298), which are least susceptible to noise, thus providing a longer lifetime of the qubit.