No Arabic abstract
Understanding ultrafast coherent electron dynamics is necessary for application of a single-electron source to metrological standards, quantum information processing, including electron quantum optics, and quantum sensing. While the dynamics of an electron emitted from the source has been extensively studied, there is as yet no study of the dynamics inside the source. This is because the speed of the internal dynamics is typically higher than 100 GHz, beyond state-of-the-art experimental bandwidth. Here, we theoretically and experimentally demonstrate that the internal dynamics in a silicon singleelectron source comprising a dynamic quantum dot can be detected, utilising a resonant level with which the dynamics is read out as gate-dependent current oscillations. Our experimental observation and simulation with realistic parameters show that an electron wave packet spatially oscillates quantum-coherently at $sim$ 200 GHz inside the source. Our results will lead to a protocol for detecting such fast dynamics in a cavity and offer a means of engineering electron wave packets. This could allow high-accuracy current sources, high-resolution and high-speed electromagnetic-field sensing, and high-fidelity initialisation of flying qubits.
We investigate a hybrid structure consisting of $20pm4$ implanted $^{31}$P atoms close to a gate-induced silicon single electron transistor (SiSET). In this configuration, the SiSET is extremely sensitive to the charge state of the nearby centers, turning from the off state to the conducting state when the charge configuration is changed. We present a method to measure fast electron tunnel rates between donors and the SiSET island, using a pulsed voltage scheme and low-bandwidth current detection. The experimental findings are quantitatively discussed using a rate equation model, enabling the extraction of the capture and emission rates.
We investigate a silicon single-electron transistor (SET) in a metal-oxide-semiconductor (MOS) structure by applying a magnetic field perpendicular to the sample surface. The quantum dot is defined electrostatically in a point contact channel and by the potential barriers from negatively charged interface traps. The magnetic field dependence of the excitation spectrum is primarily driven by the Zeeman effect. In the two-electron singlet-triplet (ST) transition, electron-electron Coulomb interaction plays a significant role. The evolution of Coulomb blockade peaks with magnetic field B is also owing to the Zeeman splitting with no obvious orbital effect up to 9 T. The filling pattern shows an alternate spin-up-spin-down sequence. The amplitude spectroscopy allows for the observation of the spin blockade effect, where the two-electron system forms a singlet state at low fields, and the spin polarized injection from the lead reduces the tunneling conductance by a factor of 8. At a higher magnetic field, due to the ST transition, the spin blockade effect is lifted and the conductance is fully recovered.
Single electron spins confined in silicon quantum dots hold great promise as a quantum computing architecture with demonstrations of long coherence times, high-fidelity quantum logic gates, basic quantum algorithms and device scalability. While single-shot spin detection is now a laboratory routine, the need for quantum error correction in a large-scale quantum computing device demands a quantum non-demolition (QND) implementation. Unlike conventional counterparts, the QND spin readout imposes minimal disturbance to the probed spin polarization and can therefore be repeated to extinguish measurement errors. However, it has remained elusive for an electron spin in silicon as it involves exquisite exposure of the system to the external circuitry for readout while maintaining the coherence and integrity of the qubit. Here we show that an electron spin qubit in silicon can be measured in a highly non-demolition manner by probing another electron spin in a neighboring dot Ising-coupled to the qubit spin. The high non-demolition fidelity (99% on average) enables over 20 readout repetitions of a single spin state, yielding an overall average measurement fidelity of up to 95% within 1.2 ms. We further demonstrate that our repetitive QND readout protocol can realize heralded high-fidelity (> 99.6%) ground-state preparation. Our QND-based measurement and preparation, mediated by a second qubit of the same kind, will allow for a new class of quantum information protocols with electron spins in silicon without compromising the architectural homogeneity.
We report an experimental technique to measure and manipulate the arrival-time and energy distributions of electrons emitted from a semiconductor electron pump, operated as both a single-electron source and a two-electron source. Using an energy-selective detector whose transmission we control on picosecond timescales, we can measure directly the electron arrival-time distribution and we determine the upper-bound to the distribution width to be 30 ps. We study the effects of modifying the shape of the voltage waveform that drives the electron pump, and show that our results can be explained by a tunneling model of the emission mechanism. This information was in turn used to control the emission-time difference and energy gap between a pair of electrons.
Electron transport in mesoscopic contacts at low temperatures is accompanied by logarithmically divergent equilibrium noise. We show that this equilibrium noise can be dramatically suppressed in the case of a tunnel junction with modulated (time-dependent) transparency, and identify the optimal protocol. We show how such a contact could be used either as an optimal electron entangler or as a single-electron source with suppressed equilibrium noise at low temperatures.