Force sensing with nanowire cantilevers.

Nanometer-scale structures with high aspect ratios such as nanowires and nanotubes combine low mechanical dissipation with high resonance frequencies, making them ideal force transducers and scanning probes in applications requiring the highest sensitivity. Such structures promise record force sensitivities combined with ease of use in scanning probe microscopes. A wide variety of possible material compositions and functionalizations is available, allowing for the sensing of various kinds of forces. In addition, nanowires possess quasi-degenerate mechanical mode doublets, which allow for sensitive vectorial force and mass detection. These developments have driven researchers to use nanowire cantilevers in various force sensing applications, which include imaging of sample surface topography, detection of optomechanical, electrical, and magnetic forces, and magnetic resonance force microscopy. In this review, we discuss the motivation behind using nanowires as force transducers, explain the methods of force sensing with nanowire cantilevers, and give an overview of the experimental progress so far and future prospects of the field.

Time-Resolved Nonlinear Coupling between Orthogonal Flexural Modes of a Pristine GaAs Nanowire.

We demonstrate nonlinear coupling between two orthogonal flexural modes of single as-grown GaAs nanowires. The resonant frequency of one mode can be shifted over many line widths by mechanically driving the other mode. We present time-domain measurements of the mode coupling and characterize it further by pump-probe experiments. Measurements show that a geometric nonlinearity causes the frequency of one mode to depend directly on the square amplitude of the other mode. Nearly degenerate orthogonal modes in nanowires are particularly interesting given their potential use in vectorial force sensing.

Electrical control of a long-lived spin qubit in a Si/SiGe quantum dot.

Nanofabricated quantum bits permit large-scale integration but usually suffer from short coherence times due to interactions with their solid-state environment. The outstanding challenge is to engineer the environment so that it minimally affects the qubit, but still allows qubit control and scalability. Here, we demonstrate a long-lived single-electron spin qubit in a Si/SiGe quantum dot with all-electrical two-axis control. The spin is driven by resonant microwave electric fields in a transverse magnetic field gradient from a local micromagnet, and the spin state is read out in the single-shot mode. Electron spin resonance occurs at two closely spaced frequencies, which we attribute to two valley states. Thanks to the weak hyperfine coupling in silicon, a Ramsey decay timescale of 1 µs is observed, almost two orders of magnitude longer than the intrinsic timescales in GaAs quantum dots, whereas gate operation times are comparable to those reported in GaAs. The spin echo decay time is ~40 µs, both with one and four echo pulses, possibly limited by intervalley scattering. These advances strongly improve the prospects for quantum information processing based on quantum dots.

Long-distance coherent coupling in a quantum dot array.

Controlling long-distance quantum correlations is central to quantum computation and simulation. In quantum dot arrays, experiments so far rely on nearest-neighbour couplings only, and inducing long-distance correlations requires sequential local operations. Here, we show that two distant sites can be tunnel-coupled directly. The coupling is mediated by virtual occupation of an intermediate site, with a strength that is controlled via the energy detuning of this site. It permits a single charge to oscillate coherently between the outer sites of a triple dot array without passing through the middle, as demonstrated through the observation of Landau-Zener-Stückelberg interference. The long-distance coupling significantly improves the prospects of fault-tolerant quantum computation using quantum dot arrays, and opens up new avenues for performing quantum simulations in nanoscale devices.

Coupling artificial molecular spin states by photon-assisted tunnelling.

Artificial molecules containing just one or two electrons provide a powerful platform for studies of orbital and spin quantum dynamics in nanoscale devices. A well-known example of these dynamics is tunnelling of electrons between two coupled quantum dots triggered by microwave irradiation. So far, these tunnelling processes have been treated as electric-dipole-allowed spin-conserving events. Here we report that microwaves can also excite tunnelling transitions between states with different spin. We show that the dominant mechanism responsible for violation of spin conservation is the spin-orbit interaction. These transitions make it possible to perform detailed microwave spectroscopy of the molecular spin states of an artificial hydrogen molecule and open up the possibility of realizing full quantum control of a two-spin system through microwave excitation.