Vacuum-field-induced THz transport gap in a carbon nanotube quantum dot.

The control of light-matter interaction at the most elementary level has become an important resource for quantum technologies. Implementing such interfaces in the THz range remains an outstanding problem. Here, we couple a single electron trapped in a carbon nanotube quantum dot to a THz resonator. The resulting light-matter interaction reaches the deep strong coupling regime that induces a THz energy gap in the carbon nanotube solely by the vacuum fluctuations of the THz resonator. This is directly confirmed by transport measurements. Such a phenomenon which is the exact counterpart of inhibition of spontaneous emission in atomic physics opens the path to the readout of non-classical states of light using electrical current. This would be a particularly useful resource and perspective for THz quantum optics.

Synthetic spin-orbit interaction for Majorana devices.

The interplay of superconductivity with non-trivial spin textures is promising for the engineering of non-Abelian Majorana quasiparticles. Spin-orbit coupling is crucial for the topological protection of Majorana modes as it forbids other trivial excitations at low energy but is typically intrinsic to the material1-7. Here, we show that coupling to a magnetic texture can induce both a strong spin-orbit coupling of 1.1 meV and a Zeeman effect in a carbon nanotube. Both of these features are revealed through oscillations of superconductivity-induced subgap states under a change in the magnetic texture. Furthermore, we find a robust zero-energy state-the hallmark of devices hosting localized Majorana modes-at zero magnetic field. Our findings are generalizable to any low-dimensional conductor, and future work could include microwave spectroscopy and braiding operations, which are at the heart of modern schemes for topological quantum computation.

Observation of the frozen charge of a Kondo resonance.

The ability to control electronic states at the nanoscale has contributed to our modern understanding of condensed matter. In particular, quantum dot circuits represent model systems for the study of strong electronic correlations, epitomized by the Kondo effect. We use circuit quantum electrodynamics architectures to study the internal degrees of freedom of this many-body phenomenon. Specifically, we couple a quantum dot to a high-quality-factor microwave cavity to measure with exceptional sensitivity the dot's electronic compressibility, that is, its ability to accommodate charges. Because electronic compressibility corresponds solely to the charge response of the electronic system, it is not equivalent to the conductance, which generally involves other degrees of freedom such as spin. Here, by performing dual conductance and compressibility measurements in the Kondo regime, we uncover directly the charge dynamics of this peculiar mechanism of electron transfer. The Kondo resonance, visible in transport measurements, is found to be 'transparent' to microwave photons trapped in the high-quality cavity, thereby revealing that (in such a many-body resonance) finite conduction is achieved from a charge frozen by Coulomb interaction. This freezing of charge dynamics is in contrast to the physics of a free electron gas. We anticipate that the tools of cavity quantum electrodynamics could be used in other types of mesoscopic circuits with many-body correlations, providing a model system in which to perform quantum simulation of fermion-boson problems.

Harnessing spin precession with dissipation.

Non-collinear spin transport is at the heart of spin or magnetization control in spintronics devices. The use of nanoscale conductors exhibiting quantum effects in transport could provide new paths for that purpose. Here we study non-collinear spin transport in a quantum dot. We use a device made out of a single-wall carbon nanotube connected to orthogonal ferromagnetic electrodes. In the spin transport signals, we observe signatures of out of equilibrium spin precession that are electrically tunable through dissipation. This could provide a new path to harness spin precession in nanoscale conductors.

QUANTUM INFORMATION. Coherent coupling of a single spin to microwave cavity photons.

Electron spins and photons are complementary quantum-mechanical objects that can be used to carry, manipulate, and transform quantum information. To combine these resources, it is desirable to achieve the coherent coupling of a single spin to photons stored in a superconducting resonator. Using a circuit design based on a nanoscale spin valve, we coherently hybridize the individual spin and charge states of a double quantum dot while preserving spin coherence. This scheme allows us to achieve spin-photon coupling up to the megahertz range at the single-spin level. The cooperativity is found to reach 2.3, and the spin coherence time is about 60 nanoseconds. We thereby demonstrate a mesoscopic device suitable for nondestructive spin readout and distant spin coupling.

Photon-mediated interaction between distant quantum dot circuits.

Engineering the interaction between light and matter is an important goal in the emerging field of quantum opto-electronics. Thanks to the use of cavity quantum electrodynamics architectures, one can envision a fully hybrid multiplexing of quantum conductors. Here we use such an architecture to couple two quantum dot circuits. Our quantum dots are separated by 200 times their own size, with no direct tunnel and electrostatic couplings between them. We demonstrate their interaction, mediated by the cavity photons. This could be used to scale up quantum bit architectures based on quantum dot circuits or simulate on-chip phonon-mediated interactions between strongly correlated electrons.

Coupling a quantum dot, fermionic leads, and a microwave cavity on a chip.

We demonstrate a hybrid architecture consisting of a quantum dot circuit coupled to a single mode of the electromagnetic field. We use single wall carbon nanotube based circuits inserted in superconducting microwave cavities. By probing the nanotube dot using a dispersive readout in the Coulomb blockade and the Kondo regime, we determine an electron-photon coupling strength which should enable circuit QED experiments with more complex quantum dot circuits.

Positive cross correlations in a three-terminal quantum dot with ferromagnetic contacts.

We study current fluctuations in an interacting three-terminal quantum dot with ferromagnetic leads. For appropriately polarized contacts, the transport through the dot is governed by dynamical spin blockade, i.e., a spin-dependent bunching of tunneling events not present in the paramagnetic case. This leads, for instance, to positive zero-frequency cross correlations of the currents in the output leads even in the absence of spin accumulation on the dot. We include the influence of spin-flip scattering and identify favorable conditions for the experimental observation of this effect with respect to polarization of the contacts and tunneling rates.

Manipulating the quantum state of an electrical circuit.

We have designed and operated a superconducting tunnel junction circuit that behaves as a two-level atom: the "quantronium." An arbitrary evolution of its quantum state can be programmed with a series of microwave pulses, and a projective measurement of the state can be performed by a pulsed readout subcircuit. The measured quality factor of quantum coherence Qphi approximately 25,000 is sufficiently high that a solid-state quantum processor based on this type of circuit can be envisioned.

Direct measurement of the Josephson supercurrent in an ultrasmall Josephson junction.

We have measured the supercurrent flowing through a nonhysteretic, ultrasmall, voltage-biased Josephson junction. In contrast with experiments performed so far on hysteretic Josephson junctions, we find a supercurrent peak whose maximum I(s max) increases as the temperature T decreases. The asymptotic T = 0 value of I(s max) agrees with the junction Ambegaokar-Baratoff critical current, as predicted by theory.

The plastid chromosome of spinach (Spinacia oleracea): complete nucleotide sequence and gene organization.

The chloroplast chromosome of spinach (Spinacia oleracea) is a double-stranded circular DNA molecule of 150,725 nucleotide pairs. A comparison of this chromosome with those of the three other autotrophic dicotyledons for which complete DNA sequences of plastid chromosomes are available confirms a conserved overall structure. Three classes of open reading frames were distinguished: (1) genes of known function which include 108 unique loci, (2) three hypothetical chloroplast reading frames (ycfs) that are highly conserved interspecifically, and (3) species-specific or rapidly diverging 'open reading frames'. A detailed transcript study of one of the latter (ycf15) shows that these loci may be transcribed, but do not constitute protein-coding genes.

Sequence analysis of an 81 kb contig from Arabidopsis thaliana chromosome III.

The nucleotide sequence of a 81 493 bp contig from Arabidopsis thaliana chromosome III has been determined together with 11 corresponding cognate cDNAs. Analysis of the finished sequence and comparison with public databases indicates a gene density of one gene per 4527 bp and identifies 17 novel genes, 10 of which are totally unknown or have no well-defined function. In addition, the contig contains part of a non-LTR retrotransposon and large direct and inverted repeats. Contig analysis also provides information on the structure and genomic organization of plant genes.