Reducing charge noise in quantum dots by using thin silicon quantum wells.

Charge noise in the host semiconductor degrades the performance of spin-qubits and poses an obstacle to control large quantum processors. However, it is challenging to engineer the heterogeneous material stack of gate-defined quantum dots to improve charge noise systematically. Here, we address the semiconductor-dielectric interface and the buried quantum well of a 28Si/SiGe heterostructure and show the connection between charge noise, measured locally in quantum dots, and global disorder in the host semiconductor, measured with macroscopic Hall bars. In 5 nm thick 28Si quantum wells, we find that improvements in the scattering properties and uniformity of the two-dimensional electron gas over a 100 mm wafer correspond to a significant reduction in charge noise, with a minimum value of 0.29 ± 0.02 µeV/Hz½ at 1 Hz averaged over several quantum dots. We extrapolate the measured charge noise to simulated dephasing times to CZ-gate fidelities that improve nearly one order of magnitude. These results point to a clean and quiet crystalline environment for integrating long-lived and high-fidelity spin qubits into a larger system.

Atomic fluctuations lifting the energy degeneracy in Si/SiGe quantum dots.

Electron spins in Si/SiGe quantum wells suffer from nearly degenerate conduction band valleys, which compete with the spin degree of freedom in the formation of qubits. Despite attempts to enhance the valley energy splitting deterministically, by engineering a sharp interface, valley splitting fluctuations remain a serious problem for qubit uniformity, needed to scale up to large quantum processors. Here, we elucidate and statistically predict the valley splitting by the holistic integration of 3D atomic-level properties, theory and transport. We find that the concentration fluctuations of Si and Ge atoms within the 3D landscape of Si/SiGe interfaces can explain the observed large spread of valley splitting from measurements on many quantum dot devices. Against the prevailing belief, we propose to boost these random alloy composition fluctuations by incorporating Ge atoms in the Si quantum well to statistically enhance valley splitting.