Abstract
Diamond is a proven solid-state platform for spin-based quantum technology. The nitrogen-vacancy center in diamond has been used to realize small-scale quantum information processing and quantum sensing under ambient conditions. A major barrier in the development of large-scale quantum information processing in diamond is the connection of nitrogen-vacancy spin registers by a quantum bus at room temperature. Given that diamond is expected to be an ideal spin transport material, the coherent transport of spin directly between the spin registers offers a potential solution. Yet, there has been no demonstration of spin transport in diamond due to difficulties in achieving spin injection and detection via conventional methods. Here, we exploit detailed knowledge of the paramagnetic defects in diamond to identify novel mechanisms to photoionize, transport, and capture spin-polarized electrons in diamond at room temperature. Having identified these mechanisms, we explore how they may be combined to realize an on-chip spin quantum bus.
- Received 27 November 2015
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.6.041035
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.
Published by the American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
Popular Summary
Diamond is a proven solid-state platform for spin-based quantum computing. Clusters of paramagnetic defects in diamond have been used to demonstrate small-scale quantum computing under ambient conditions given the long spin coherence times (i.e., milliseconds) of nitrogen-vacancy centers and the fact that light can initialize and read out their electronic spin states. However, the development of large-scale quantum computing in diamond is inhibited by problems realizing on-chip communication channels—known as quantum buses—that allow quantum information to be exchanged between defect clusters. Here, we propose a technique to realize quantum buses in diamond.
The coherent transport of spin directly between defect clusters offers a way forward in the field of quantum communication in diamond, an ideal spin transport material. However, there have been no demonstrations of spin transport in diamond because of difficulties in achieving spin injection and detection via conventional methods. In this study, we propose combining mechanisms to realize an on-chip spin quantum bus for large-scale diamond quantum computing by connecting two defect spin clusters with a diamond nanowire. We exploit new knowledge of the paramagnetic defects in diamond to identify novel mechanisms to achieve spin-coherent photoionization, transport, and capture of electrons in diamond at room temperature.
While our findings are not yet sufficient for fault-tolerant quantum computing, we expect that our work will pave the way for future studies exploring quantum buses in diamond. Such studies could focus on, for example, improving the electrical properties of diamond nanowires.