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arXiv:1506.04597 · Scientific Reports

High Efficiency CVD Graphene-lead (Pb) Cooper Pair Splitter

Ivan Valerievich Borzenets, Yuya Shimazaki, Gareth J. F. Jones, Monica F. Craciun, Saverio Russo, Michihisa Yamamoto, Seigo Tarucha

Published Mar 14, 2016• 55 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Generation and manipulation of quantum entangled electrons is an important concept in quantum mechanics, and necessary for advances in quantum information processing; but not yet established in solid state systems. A promising device is a superconductor-two quantum dots Cooper pair splitter. Early nanowire based devices, while efficient, are limited in scalability and further electron manipulation. We demonstrate an optimized, high efficiency, CVD grown graphene-based Cooper pair splitter. Our device is designed to induce superconductivity in graphene via the proximity effect, resulting in both a large superconducting gap Δ = 0.5 meV, and coherence length ξ = 200 nm. The flat nature of the device lowers parasitic capacitance, increasing charging energy EC. Our design also eases geometric restrictions and minimizes output channel separation. As a result we measure a visibility of up to 86% and a splitting efficiency of up to 62%. This will pave the way towards near unity efficiencies, long distance splitting, and post-splitting electron manipulation.

DOI
10.1038/srep23051

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Generation and manipulation of quantum entangled electrons is an important concept in quantum mechanics, and necessary for advances in quantum information processing; but not yet established in solid state systems. A promising device is a superconductor-two quantum dots Cooper pair splitter. Early nanowire based devices, while efficient, are limited in scalability and further electron manipulation. We demonstrate an optimized, high efficiency, CVD grown graphene-based Cooper pair splitter. Our device is designed to induce superconductivity in graphene via the proximity effect, resulting in both a large superconducting gap Δ = 0.5 meV, and coherence length ξ = 200 nm. The flat nature of the device lowers parasitic capacitance, increasing charging energy EC. Our design also eases geometric restrictions and minimizes output channel separation. As a result we measure a visibility of up to 86% and a splitting efficiency of up to 62%. This will pave the way towards near unity efficiencies, long distance splitting, and post-splitting electron manipulation.
Entanglement, being at the heart of the Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) paradox, is a necessary ingredient in processing quantum information. Cooper pairs in superconductors - being composites of two fully entangled electrons - can be split adiabatically, thus forming entangled electrons. We fabricated such electron splitter by contacting an aluminum superconductor strip at the center of a suspended InAs nanowire; terminated at both ends with two normal metallic drains. Intercepting each half of the nanowire by gate - induced Coulomb blockaded quantum dot strongly impeded the flow of Cooper pairs due to large charging energy, while still permitting passage of single electrons. Here, we provide conclusive evidence of extremely high efficiency Cooper pairs splitting via observing positive average (conductance) and time (shot noise) correlations of the split electrons in the two opposite drains of the nanowire. Moreover, The actual charge of the injected quasiparticles was verified by shot noise measurements.
A split Cooper pair is a natural source for entangled electrons which is a basic ingredient for quantum information in the solid state. We report an experiment on a superconductor-graphene double quantum dot (QD) system, in which we observe Cooper pair splitting (CPS) up to a CPS efficiency of ∼10%. With bias on both QDs, we are able to detect a positive conductance correlation across the two distinctly decoupled QDs. Furthermore, with bias only on one QD, CPS and elastic cotunneling can be distinguished by tuning the energy levels of the QDs to be asymmetric or symmetric with respect to the Fermi level in the superconductor.
Entanglement is a valuable resource for quantum computing and information technologies. A promising way to obtain spin-entangled electrons is the splitting of Cooper pairs residing in superconductors. This is realized by a nanodevice called Cooper pair splitter. A Cooper pair splitter is realized by tunnel-coupling a superconductor to two quantum dots, which are each further tunnelcoupled to separate terminal leads. This setup enables the extraction and splitting of Cooper pairs from the superconductor into the terminals via the quantum dots. The quantum dots are commonly fabricated from semiconducting materials like InAs and InSb, that can manifest spin-orbit interaction. This thesis studies the effect of spin-orbit interaction on the spin state of the electron pair in the Cooper pair splitter. Activating the spin-orbit effects in a Cooper pair splitter requires a static magnetic field to be applied to the quantum dots. Together with the gate electrodes controlling the electrostatic energy of the quantum dots, the external magnetic field provides a handle for addressing different two-particle spin states. The spin-orbit interaction can be activated by various combinations of the gate voltage and Zeeman magnetic field, that create resonances between different states of the system. The most interesting coherent evolution, that can be invoked in this way, involves the simultaneous activation of the two spin-polarized triplet states. This gives a rise to an entangled Bell state, (|↑↑>+|↓↓>) / √2, that moreover exhibits spin blockade and thus stabilizes entanglement in the Cooper pair splitter. Secondly, the spin-orbit interaction can be used to bypass suppressed Cooper pair tunneling at a high superconductor-quantum dots detuning. Introducing a large Zeeman magnetic field allows Cooper pairs to tunnel in to the dots given that their spin state flips to the triplet |↓↓>. Although this regime lacks spin-entanglement, it is of interest for creating triplet Cooper pairs and spin-polarized superconducting currents.
New strategies to generate and to detect spin-entangled pairs of electrons in mesoscopic solid-state heterostructures are proposed. A bilayer-graphene device is designed in which Cooper pairs from an s-wave superconductor are injected into an electrostatically-defined topological channel. Due to a particular band structure, two electrons of a Cooper pair propagate in opposite directions and are hence spatially separated if atomic-scale defects are sparse. Neither energy filtering nor Coulomb repulsion are required. The device can be interpreted as a normal/superconducting/normal junction, in which emission of nonlocal singlets is equivalent to local Andreev reflection, in contrast to the widespread identification of Cooper pair splitting with crossed Andreev reflection. To detect entanglement, the Josephson current through two parallel single-level quantum dots is investigated at all occupations. Combining exact diagonalization and perturbation theory, signatures of nonlocal Cooper pair transport are identified in the critical current, a macroscopic quantity. The model reproduces recent experimental observations and predicts a nonlocal triplet ground state on the quantum dots due to a tunable superconductor-mediated exchange coupling, which, too, is visible in the critical current exactly if nonlocal Cooper pairs are transported. Entanglement detection is pursued, too, by converting spin-entangled Cooper pairs into polarization-entangled photons, which are subsequently probed by a Bell-type measurement. A closed emission cycle is constructed, such that no correlations between the photons and the electrons remain, which are detrimental for entanglement transfer. Inevitable side channels and imperfections are identified and accounted for by a particular measurement protocol. Furthermore, it is discussed how spin-charge separation can be used to extract signatures of nonlocal spin singlets from the average current through an electronic beam splitter. This complements a known mechanism based on exchange statistics by which only the more difficult-to-access noise is sensitive for entanglement. The device can be realized by two crossed nanowires or by quantum-Hall edge states in Corbino geometry. The thesis also contains a review on entanglement and on recent theoretical and experimental progress in solid-state systems towards entanglement detection and generation, focusing on Cooper pair splitting.
Cooper pairs in the superconductor are a natural source of spin entanglement. The existing proposals of the Cooper pair splitter can only realize a low efficiency of entanglement production, and its size is constrained by the superconducting coherence length. Here we show that a long-range Cooper pair splitter can be implemented in a normal metal-superconductor-normal metal (NSN) junction by driving a supercurrent in the S. The supercurrent results in a band gap modification of the S, which significantly enhances the crossed Andreev reflection (CAR) of the NSN junction and simultaneously quenches its elastic cotunneling. Therefore, a high entanglement production rate close to its saturation value can be achieved by the inverse CAR. Interestingly, in addition to the conventional entangled electron states between opposite energy levels, novel entangled states with equal energy can also be induced in our proposal.
Cooper pair splitters are promising candidates for generating spin-entangled electrons. However, the splitting of Cooper pairs is a random and noisy process, which hinders further synchronized operations on the entangled electrons. To circumvent this problem, we here propose and analyze a dynamic Cooper pair splitter that produces a noiseless and regular flow of spin-entangled electrons. The Cooper pair splitter is based on a superconductor coupled to quantum dots, whose energy levels are tuned in and out of resonance to control the splitting process. We identify the optimal operating conditions for which exactly one Cooper pair is split per period of the external drive and the flow of entangled electrons becomes noiseless. To characterize the regularity of the Cooper pair splitter in the time domain, we analyze the g^{(2)} function of the output currents and the distribution of waiting times between split Cooper pairs. Our proposal is feasible using current technology, and it paves the way for dynamic quantum information processing with spin-entangled electrons.