Distant spin entanglement via fast and coherent electron shuttling.

In the quest for large-scale quantum computing, networked quantum computers offer a natural path towards scalability. While recent experiments have demonstrated nearest neighbour entanglement for electron spin qubits in semiconductors, on-chip long-distance entanglement could bring more versatility to connect quantum core units. Here, we employ the moving trapping potential of a surface acoustic wave to realize the controlled and coherent transfer of a pair of entangled electron spins between two distant quantum dots. The subsequent electron displacement induces coherent spin rotations, which drives spin quantum interferences. We observe high-contrast interference as a signature of the preservation of the entanglement all along the displacement procedure, which includes a separation of the two spins by a distance of 6 µm. This work opens the route towards fast on-chip deterministic interconnection of remote quantum bits in semiconductor quantum circuits.

Coherent control of individual electron spins in a two-dimensional quantum dot array.

The coherent manipulation of individual quantum objects organized in arrays is a prerequisite to any scalable quantum information platform. The cumulated efforts to control electron spins in quantum dot arrays have permitted the recent realization of quantum simulators and multielectron spin-coherent manipulations. Although a natural path to resolve complex quantum-matter problems and to process quantum information, two-dimensional (2D) scaling with a high connectivity of such implementations remains undemonstrated. Here we demonstrate the 2D coherent control of individual electron spins in a 3 × 3 array of tunnel-coupled quantum dots. We focus on several key quantum functionalities: charge-deterministic loading and displacement, local spin readout and local coherent exchange manipulation between two electron spins trapped in adjacent dots. This work lays some of the foundations to exploit a 2D array of electron spins for quantum simulation and information processing.

Sound-driven single-electron transfer in a circuit of coupled quantum rails.

Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) strongly modulate the shallow electric potential in piezoelectric materials. In semiconductor heterostructures such as GaAs/AlGaAs, SAWs can thus be employed to transfer individual electrons between distant quantum dots. This transfer mechanism makes SAW technologies a promising candidate to convey quantum information through a circuit of quantum logic gates. Here we present two essential building blocks of such a SAW-driven quantum circuit. First, we implement a directional coupler allowing to partition a flying electron arbitrarily into two paths of transportation. Second, we demonstrate a triggered single-electron source enabling synchronisation of the SAW-driven sending process. Exceeding a single-shot transfer efficiency of 99%, we show that a SAW-driven integrated circuit is feasible with single electrons on a large scale. Our results pave the way to perform quantum logic operations with flying electron qubits.

Gate-based high fidelity spin readout in a CMOS device.

The engineering of a compact qubit unit cell that embeds all quantum functionalities is mandatory for large-scale integration. In addition, these functionalities should present the lowest error rate possible to successfully implement quantum error correction protocols1. Electron spins in silicon quantum dots are particularly promising because of their high control fidelity2-5 and their potential compatibility with complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor industrial platforms6,7. However, an efficient and scalable spin readout scheme is still missing. Here we demonstrate a high fidelity and robust spin readout based on gate reflectometry in a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor device that consists of a qubit dot and an ancillary dot coupled to an electron reservoir. This scalable method allows us to read out a spin in a single-shot manner with an average fidelity above 98% for a 0.5 ms integration time. To achieve such a fidelity, we combine radio-frequency gate reflectometry with a latched spin blockade mechanism that requires electron exchange between the ancillary dot and the reservoir. We show that the demonstrated high readout fidelity is fully preserved up to 0.5 K. This result holds particular relevance for the future cointegration of spin qubits and classical control electronics.

Injection of a single electron from static to moving quantum dots.

We study the injection mechanism of a single electron from a static quantum dot into a moving quantum dot. The moving quantum dots are created with surface acoustic waves (SAWs) in a long depleted channel. We demonstrate that the injection process is characterized by an activation law with a threshold that depends on the SAW amplitude and on the dot-channel potential gradient. By sufficiently increasing the SAW modulation amplitude, we can reach a regime where the transfer has unity probability and is potentially adiabatic. This study points to the relevant regime to use moving dots in quantum information protocols.

Damage-free top-down processes for fabricating two-dimensional arrays of 7 nm GaAs nanodiscs using bio-templates and neutral beam etching.

The first damage-free top-down fabrication processes for a two-dimensional array of 7 nm GaAs nanodiscs was developed by using ferritin (a protein which includes a 7 nm diameter iron core) bio-templates and neutral beam etching. The photoluminescence of GaAs etched with a neutral beam clearly revealed that the processes could accomplish defect-free etching for GaAs. In the bio-template process, to remove the ferritin protein shell without thermal damage to the GaAs, we firstly developed an oxygen-radical treatment method with a low temperature of 280 °C. Then, the neutral beam etched the defect-free nanodisc structure of the GaAs using the iron core as an etching mask. As a result, a two-dimensional array of GaAs quantum dots with a diameter of ∼ 7 nm, a height of ∼ 10 nm, a high taper angle of 88° and a quantum dot density of more than 7 × 10(11) cm(-2) was successfully fabricated without causing any damage to the GaAs.