MRI: Development of a Miniaturized Molecular Beam Epitaxy Setup for Direct Printing of Quantum Circuits

MRI：开发用于直接打印量子电路的小型化分子束外延装置

• 批准号: 2019131
• 负责人: Shuolong Yang
• 金额: $ 44.71万
• 依托单位: University of Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2020-10-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2019131&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: MRI; Development; Miniaturized; Molecular; Beam

This Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) grant will support the development of a nanoscale deposition tool – a miniaturized molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) system – for direct fabrication of nanoscale structures for quantum applications. As the era of quantum engineering emerges, there is a pressing need to rapidly design, prototype, and test nanoscale structures for quantum information processing. This is critical not only to the investigation of fundamental questions in quantum information sciences, but also to the development of quantum sensors, quantum computing, and quantum networking. Current technologies separate material synthesis and nanoscale engineering. To enable more rapid development, researchers will pursue an innovative design based on nanoscale scanning probe technologies and develop a deposition tool that combines advanced synthesis and nanofabrication in one step. This instrument will have the following impacts: i) facilitate rapid development of quantum technologies; ii) develop a versatile tool to serve the broad quantum research and engineering community at the University of Chicago; iii) promote education and outreach at the graduate, undergraduate, and high school level. Outreach programs will engage the surrounding community in the Chicago South area. The investigators will allocate 40% of machine usage to the broader quantum research community at the University of Chicago, which will serve as an intellectual hub for training future quantum scientists. The team includes experts on nanoscale materials science, microelectronics, quantum sensing, quantum computing, and quantum information. It has the goal of developing a miniaturized MBE system. Traditional MBE is a state-of-the-art deposition tool to produce wafer-scale thin films; nanofabrication such as photo- or electron-beam-lithography is used as the second step to engineer the nanoscale structures and devices. Supported by this MRI grant, the investigators shrink the lateral scale of deposition to tens of nanometers. This is achieved by customizing a scanning probe into a nano nozzle, which is integrated into a commercial scanning tunneling microscopy system. This new tool is developed in a dedicated laboratory space at the University of Chicago, with established microscopy and spectroscopy tools available to characterize the structures fabricated by the miniaturized MBE system. This instrument will enable research in a number of new scientific areas including but not limited to: 1) two-dimensional superconducting quantum devices based on nanoscale superconductor deposition; 2) delta doping of rare earth elements in oxide materials to host individual to few-body entangled quantum bits; 3) hybrid quantum sensors composed of rare-earth oxide islands and nitrogen-vacancy centers. This will be a field-defining development which aims at expediting the investigation of fundamental quantum phenomena and quantum technology developments.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

这项重大研究仪器（MRI）拨款将支持开发纳米级沉积工具-小型化分子束外延（MBE）系统-用于直接制造量子应用的纳米级结构。随着量子工程时代的到来，迫切需要快速设计，原型和测试用于量子信息处理的纳米结构。这不仅对量子信息科学中的基础问题的研究至关重要，而且对量子传感器，量子计算和量子网络的发展也至关重要。目前的技术将材料合成和纳米工程分开。 为了实现更快的发展，研究人员将追求基于纳米级扫描探针技术的创新设计，并开发一种将先进合成和纳米纤维一步到位的沉积工具。该仪器将产生以下影响：i）促进量子技术的快速发展; ii）开发一种多功能工具，为芝加哥大学的广泛量子研究和工程社区服务; iii）促进研究生，本科生和高中水平的教育和推广。外展计划将吸引芝加哥南部地区的周边社区。研究人员将把40%的机器使用分配给芝加哥大学更广泛的量子研究社区，该社区将成为培训未来量子科学家的智力中心。该团队包括纳米材料科学，微电子学，量子传感，量子计算和量子信息方面的专家。 它的目标是开发一个小型化的MBE系统。传统的分子束外延是一种最先进的沉积工具，用于生产晶圆级薄膜;纳米工艺，如光或电子束光刻，被用作设计纳米结构和器件的第二步。在这项MRI资助的支持下，研究人员将沉积的横向尺度缩小到几十纳米。这是通过将扫描探针定制为纳米喷嘴来实现的，该喷嘴集成到商业扫描隧道显微镜系统中。这种新工具是在芝加哥大学的一个专用实验室空间开发的，现有的显微镜和光谱学工具可用于表征由小型化MBE系统制造的结构。该仪器将使许多新科学领域的研究成为可能，包括但不限于：1）基于纳米级超导体沉积的二维超导量子器件; 2）氧化物材料中稀土元素的delta掺杂，以承载单个到少体纠缠量子比特; 3）由稀土氧化物岛和氮空位中心组成的混合量子传感器。这将是一个领域定义的发展，旨在加快基本量子现象和量子技术发展的调查。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。