CAREER: Coupling Spin, Light, and Charge for Quantum Information Processing and Storage in Diamond

非技术描述：半导体中的原子级缺陷长期以来一直是传统集成电子设备的祸根，实际上可以形成新一代设备的基础，这些设备利用量子力学效应来实现革命性的新功能。特定类型的杂质，称为缺陷自旋，在适合集成和小型化的室温器件中表现出理想的量子特征。这些缺陷响应电、磁和光场，它们可以嵌入到生物相容性纳米颗粒中，作为具有纳米精度的量子探针。本CAREER项目旨在探索控制金刚石缺陷自旋的新方法，以实现量子信息处理和量子传感的实用技术。具体来说，这个项目旨在(i)展示一种用光探测钻石自旋的新方法，这种方法可以显着提高它们作为量子比特和量子探针的功能；（ii）分离和操纵耦合杂质自旋，这些自旋可以作为量子存储器比特，在室温下以天为单位测量寿命，比目前的技术水平提高许多个数量级。这些元素将构成量子计算机、安全量子通信链路和其他芯片级量子技术的关键组件。该项目进一步纳入了广泛的教育目标，以促进量子工程的新兴领域，它打破了原子和固态物理、电子工程、材料科学、化学和生物学等学科之间的传统界限。它将支持构建和部署量子相干性的实际演示，其中K-12学生和普通公众可以在室温设备中用肉眼实际看到量子物理。技术描述：金刚石中的氮空位（NV）等缺陷自旋具有作为未来量子技术基石的明显潜力，但几个关键挑战阻碍了实用设备的发展。现有的将金刚石NV自旋与单光子耦合的方法需要液氦温度（10 K），而且到目前为止，它们与集成光子学不兼容。此外，纳米尺度的传感能力受到NV自旋的标准光学读出机制的限制，该机制需要对重复测量进行平均，这是非常低效的。该项目将通过利用金刚石杂质中电荷、轨道、光学和自旋动力学的复杂相互作用来解决这些挑战。一项在室温下实现全光、单次NV自旋读出的新技术将促进应用，包括局域场的量子受限传感，探测多个自旋之间的量子相关性，以及传感无法重复获得的随机信号（例如神经元活动）。同时，对耦合缺陷供体自旋系统中自旋和电荷动力学的研究旨在建立一种室温相干时间以天为单位测量的光寻址量子存储器，这将使包括量子货币和量子中继器在内的安全通信技术成为可能。

Nontechnical description:Atom-scale defects in semiconductors -long the bane of conventional integrated electronic devices - could actually form the basis for new generations of devices that harness quantum mechanical effects to achieve transformational new functionalities. Select types of impurities, known as defect spins, exhibit desirable quantum features in room-temperature devices amenable to integration and miniaturization. These defects respond to electric, magnetic, and optical fields, and they can be embedded in biocompatible nanoparticles to serve as quantum probes with nanometer precision. The purpose of this CAREER project is to explore new ways to control defect spins in diamond, in order to realize practical technologies for quantum information processing and quantum sensing. Specifically, this project aims to (i) demonstrate a new approach to probing diamond spins with light that dramatically boosts their functionality as quantum bits and quantum probes and (ii) isolate and manipulate coupled impurity spins that could serve as quantum memory bits with lifetimes measured in days at room temperature, improving over the state of the art by many orders of magnitude. These elements will form critical components for quantum computers, secure quantum communication links, and other chip-scale quantum technologies. The project further incorporates broad educational goals to promote the emerging domain of quantum engineering, which breaks traditional boundaries between disciplines such as atomic and solid-state physics, electrical engineering, materials science, chemistry, and biology. It will support the construction and deployment of hands-on demonstrations of quantum coherence, in which K-12 students and the general public can actually see quantum physics with their naked eyes in room-temperature devices. Technical description:Defect spins such as the nitrogen-vacancy (NV) in diamond have clear potential as building blocks for future quantum technologies, but several key challenges impede the development of practical devices. Existing approaches to couple diamond NV spins with single photons require liquid helium temperatures (10 K), and they are so far incompatible with integrated photonics. Furthermore, nanoscale sensing capabilities are limited by the standard optical readout mechanism for NV spins that requires averaging repeated measurements, which is woefully inefficient. This project will address these challenges by leveraging the complex interplay of charge, orbital, optical, and spin dynamics in diamond impurities. A new technique to achieve all-optical, single-shot NV spin readout at room temperature will facilitate applications including quantum-limited sensing of local fields, probing quantum correlations between multiple spins, and sensing stochastic signals (e.g., neuron activity) that cannot be repetitively acquired. In parallel, investigations of spin and charge dynamics in coupled defect-donor spin systems aim to establish an optically-addressable quantum memory with room-temperature coherence times measured in days, which will enable secure communication technologies including quantum money and quantum repeaters.