We investigate qubit measurements using a single electron transistor (SET). Applying the Schrodinger equation to the entire system we find that an asymmetric SET is considerably more efficient than a symmetric SET. The asymmetric SET becomes close to an ideal detector in the large asymmetry limit. We also compared the SET detector with a point-contact detector. This comparison allows us to illuminate the relation between information gain in the measurement process and the decoherence generated by these measurement devices.
We investigate charge qubit measurements using a single electron transistor, with focus on the backaction-induced renormalization of qubit parameters. It is revealed the renormalized dynamics leads to a number of intriguing features in the detectors noise spectra, and therefore needs to be accounted for to properly understand the measurement result. Noticeably, the level renormalization gives rise to a strongly enhanced signal-to-noise ratio, which can even exceed the universal upper bound imposed quantum mechanically on linear-response detectors.
We report on the fabrication and electrical characterization at millikelvin temperatures of a novel silicon single-electron transistor (Si-SET). The island and source-drain leads of the Si-SET are formed by the implantation of phosphorus ions to a density above the metal-insulator-transition, with the tunnel junctions created by undoped regions. Surface gates above each of the tunnel junctions independently control the tunnel coupling between the Si-SET island and leads. The device shows periodic Coulomb blockade with a charging energy e$^2$/2C$_Sigma$ $sim$ 250 $mu$eV, and demonstrates a reproducible and controllable pathway to a silicon-based SET using CMOS processing techniques.
We report electronic transport experiments on a graphene single electron transistor. The device consists of a graphene island connected to source and drain electrodes via two narrow graphene constrictions. It is electrostatically tunable by three lateral graphene gates and an additional back gate. The tunneling coupling is a strongly nonmonotonic function of gate voltage indicating the presence of localized states in the barriers. We investigate energy scales for the tunneling gap, the resonances in the constrictions and for the Coulomb blockade resonances. From Coulomb diamond measurements in different device configurations (i.e. barrier configurations) we extract a charging energy of 3.4 meV and estimate a characteristic energy scale for the constriction resonances of 10 meV.
Single dopants in semiconductor nanostructures have been studied in great details recently as they are good candidates for quantum bits, provided they are coupled to a detector. Here we report coupling of a single As donor atom to a single-electron transistor (SET) in a silicon nanowire field-effect transistor. Both capacitive and tunnel coupling are achieved, the latter resulting in a dramatic increase of the conductance through the SET, by up to one order of magnitude. The experimental results are well explained by the rate equations theory developed in parallel with the experiment.
The possibility of quantum computing with spins in germanium nanoscale transistors has recently attracted interest since it promises highly tuneable qubits that have encouraging coherence times. We here present the first complete theory of the orbital states of Ge donor electrons, and use it to show that Ge could have significant advantages over silicon in the implementation of a donor-based quantum processor architecture. We show that the stronger spin-orbit interaction and the larger electron donor wave functions for Ge donors allow for greater tuning of the single qubit energy than for those in Si crystals, thus enabling a large speedup of selective (local) quantum gates. Further, exchange coupling between neighboring donor qubits is shown to be much larger in Ge than in Si, and we show that this greatly relaxes the precision in donor placement needed for robust two-qubit gates. To do this we compare two statistical distributions for Ge:P and Si:P pair couplings, corresponding to realistic donor implantation misplacement, and find that the spin couplings in Ge:P have a $33%$ chance of being within an order of magnitude of the largest coupling, compared with only $10%$ for the Si:P donors. This allows fast, parallel and robust architectures for quantum computing with donors in Ge.