The interaction of qubits via microwave frequency photons enables long-distance qubit-qubit coupling and facilitates the realization of a large-scale quantum processor. However, qubits based on electron spins in semiconductor quantum dots have proven challenging to couple to microwave photons. In this theoretical work we show that a sizable coupling for a single electron spin is possible via spin-charge hybridization using a magnetic field gradient in a silicon double quantum dot. Based on parameters already shown in recent experiments, we predict optimal working points to achieve a coherent spin-photon coupling, an essential ingredient for the generation of long-range entanglement. Furthermore, we employ input-output theory to identify observable signatures of spin-photon coupling in the cavity output field, which may provide guidance to the experimental search for strong coupling in such spin-photon systems and opens the way to cavity-based readout of the spin qubit.
The interaction of qubits via microwave frequency photons enables long-distance qubit-qubit coupling and facilitates the realization of a large-scale quantum processor. However, qubits based on electron spins in semiconductor quantum dots have proven challenging to couple to microwave photons. In this theoretical work we show that a sizable coupling for a single electron spin is possible via spin-charge hybridization using a magnetic field gradient in a silicon double quantum dot. Based on parameters already shown in recent experiments, we predict optimal working points to achieve a coherent spin-photon coupling, an essential ingredient for the generation of long-range entanglement. Furthermore, we employ input-output theory to identify observable signatures of spin-photon coupling in the cavity output field, which may provide guidance to the experimental search for strong coupling in such spin-photon systems and opens the way to cavity-based readout of the spin qubit.
This dissertation describes a set of experiments with the goal of creating a super-conductor-semiconductor hybrid circuit quantum electrodynamics architecture with single electron spins. Single spins in silicon quantum dots have emerged as attractive qubits for quantum computation. However, how to scale up spin qubit systems remains an open question. The hybrid architecture considered here could provide a route to realizing large networks of quantum dot–based spin qubit registers. The first experiment in this thesis is aimed at achieving strong coupling between a single electron spin and a single microwave photon. The electron is trapped in a gate-defined double quantum dot in a Si/SiGe heterostructure and the photon is stored in an on-chip superconducting high-impedance NbTiN cavity. The photon is coupled directly to the electron charge, and indirectly to the electron spin, mediated through a synthetic spin-orbit field. We observe a vacuum Rabi splitting that depends on the spin-charge hybridization. The ratio of spin-photon coupling strength to decoherence rates of the spin and cavity combined is larger than unity, confirming the strong coupling regime has been reached. In addition, we find an optimal degree of spin-charge hybridization for which this ratio is maximized. The demonstration of strong spin-photon coupling not only opens a new range of physics experiments, but fulfills also a crucial requirement for coupling spin qubits at a distance via a cavity. The second experiment is focused on spin readout with the on-chip cavity. Instead of the direct dispersive readout of a single spin, we use the cavity to detect whether the electron is allowed to tunnel between the two dots or not. We benchmark the charge sensitivity and bandwidth of the detector and find that rapid detection of the electron charge with high SNR is possible. In the two-electron regime, electron tunneling is contingent on the total spin state (Pauli spin blockade). This spin-to-charge conversion scheme enables single-shot detection of singlet states with high-fidelity. The demonstration of single-shot spin readout with a cavity is an essential step towards readout in dense spin qubit arrays, such as the crossbar network, where it is not possible to integrate electrometers and accompanying reservoirs adjacent to the qubit dots. In the third experiment, we develop on-chip microwave filters to suppress microwave photon leakage from the cavity through the gate electrodes that are necessary to form quantum dots. We introduce a new cavity design that is compatible with long-distance connectivity between spins, but is also more susceptible to microwave leakage. We test and compare two low-pass filter variations in terms of performance, footprint and integrability. They use the same nanowire inductor, but different implementations of the capacitor: one with a planar interdigitated capacitor and one novel design with an overlapping thin-film capacitor. We find that both approaches are effective against microwave leakage. However, the large footprint of the interdigitated capacitor makes this solution inconvenient as the number of gate lines increases. The thin-film capacitor, with its much smaller footprint, is better suited for our devices. The final part of this dissertation contains concluding remarks and possible future directions are proposed.
Coherent and strong coupling between photons and solid-state qubits, in the form of circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED), has been harnessed for two-qubit gates mediated by photons and high-fidelity quantum non-demolition readout, which are the building blocks of large-scale quantum computation. Recently, circuit QED has been extended to gate-defined semiconductor quantum dots. In this thesis, we develop a novel hybrid circuit QED architecture composed of a high-impedance superconducting microwave resonator and spins localized in silicon-MOS quantum dots. To control and measure the spin degrees of freedom, this hybrid system needs to operate at finite magnetic field. Consequently, we develop and characterize microwave resonators based on thin niobium nitride (NbN) films featuring a high kinetic inductance. We demonstrate high-impedance resonators with magnetic field resilience and low photon loss rates. We then co-integrate the NbN resonators on silicon spin qubit chips. With a hole confined in a double quantum dot (DQD), we report the first realization of a strong hole charge-photon interaction bordering the ultra-strong coupling regime. At finite magnetic field, putting the spin transition energy in resonance with the microwave cavity, we observe large vacuum Rabi mode splittings, signature of a strong spin-photon coupling. Our findings are well captured by the modelling of a hole DQD with different anisotropic Zeeman response in each dot and spin-orbit coupling dependent tunnel rates. We also find a sizeable spin-photon coupling when the hole is localized in the single quantum dot, in line with recent theoretical predictions. The different works presented in this manuscript pave the way for circuit QED with hole spins in gate-defined semiconductor quantum dots.
Semiconductor quantum dots in silicon demonstrate exceptionally long spin lifetimes as qubits and are therefore promising candidates for quantum information processing. However, control and readout techniques for these devices have thus far employed low frequency electrons, in contrast to high speed temperature readout techniques used in other qubit architectures, and coupling between multiple quantum dot qubits has not been satisfactorily addressed.This dissertation presents the design and characterization of a semiconductor charge qubit based on double quantum dot in silicon with an integrated microwave resonator for control and readout. The 6 GHz resonator is designed to achieve strong coupling with the quantum dot qubit, allowing the use of circuit QED control and readout techniques which have not previously been applicable to semiconductor qubits. To achieve this coupling, this document demonstrates successful operation of a novel silicon double quantum dot design with a single active metallic layer and a coplanar stripline resonator with a bias tee for dc excitation.Experiments presented here demonstrate quantum localization and measurement of both electrons on the quantum dot and photons in the resonator. Further, it is shown that the resonator-qubit coupling in these devices is sufficient to reach the strong coupling regime of circuit QED. The details of a measurement setup capable of performing simultaneous low noise measurements of the resonator and quantum dot structure are also presented here.The ultimate aim of this research is to integrate the long coherence times observed in electron spins in silicon with the sophisticated readout architectures available in circuit QED based quantum information systems. This would allow superconducting qubits to be coupled directly to semiconductor qubits to create hybrid quantum systems with separate quantum memory and processing components.
Strong coupling of semiconductor spin qubits to superconducting microwave resonators was recently demonstrated [X. Mi et al., Nature 555, 599 (2018); A. J. Landig et al., Nature 560, 179 (2018); N. Samkharadze et al., Science 359, 1123 (2018); T. Cubaynes et al., NPJ Quant. Inf. 5, 47 (2019)]. These breakthroughs pave the way for quantum information processing that combines the long coherence times of solid-state spin qubits with the long-distance connectivity, fast control, and fast high-fidelity quantum-non-demolition readout of existing superconducting qubit implementations. Here we theoretically analyze and optimize the dispersive readout of a single spin in a semiconductor double quantum dot (DQD) coupled to a microwave resonator via its electric dipole moment. The strong spin-photon coupling arises from the motion of the electron spin in a local magnetic field gradient. We calculate the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the readout accounting for both Purcell spin relaxation and spin relaxation arising from intrinsic electric noise within the semiconductor. We express the maximum achievable SNR in terms of the cooperativity associated with these two dissipation processes. We find that while the cooperativity increases with the strength of the dipole coupling between the DQD and the resonator, it does not depend on the strength of the magnetic field gradient. We then optimize the SNR as a function of experimentally tunable DQD parameters. We identify wide regions of parameter space where the unwanted backaction of the resonator photons on the qubit is small. Moreover, we find that the coupling of the resonator to other DQD transitions can enhance the SNR by at least a factor of two, a ``straddling'' effect [J. Koch et al., Phys. Rev. A 76, 042319 (2007)] that occurs only at nonzero energy detuning of the DQD double-well potential. We estimate that with current technology, single-shot readout fidelities in the range 82--95% can be achieved within a few $\ensuremath{\mu}\mathrm{s}$ of readout time without requiring the use of Purcell filters.
Spin qubits in silicon and germanium quantum dots are promising platforms for quantum computing, but entangling spin qubits over micrometer distances remains a critical challenge. Current prototypical architectures maximize transversal interactions between qubits and microwave resonators, where the spin state is flipped by nearly resonant photons. However, these interactions cause backaction on the qubit that yields unavoidable residual qubit-qubit couplings and significantly affects the gate fidelity. Strikingly, residual couplings vanish when spin-photon interactions are longitudinal and photons couple to the phase of the qubit. We show that large and tunable spin-photon interactions emerge naturally in state-of-the-art hole spin qubits and that they change from transversal to longitudinal depending on the magnetic field direction. We propose ways to electrically control and measure these interactions, as well as realistic protocols to implement fast high-fidelity two-qubit entangling gates. These protocols work also at high temperatures, paving the way toward the implementation of large-scale quantum processors.
We theoretically investigate quantum correlations and energy storage in a single-electron silicon double quantum dot (eDQD) coupled to a single-mode microwave cavity. The charge and spin degrees of freedom are hybridized by Rashba spin-orbit coupling (SOC), while the cavity interacts with the eDQD through spin-photon and charge-photon couplings. Using the reduced thermal density matrix, we characterize spin-charge entanglement by concurrence and quantum coherence by the l1 norm. At low temperature, the cavity strongly modifies the spin-charge correlations, producing distinct regimes of enhanced and suppressed entanglement. We identify a nonlinear crossover between an eDQD-dominated regime and a photon-dressed regime. This crossover is revealed independently by two signatures: a rapid change in the concurrence and the onset of finite photon occupation in the cavity. Its boundary exhibits a dominant Gc∝Ω dependence and is robust against cavity Hilbert-space truncation. Beyond the Rashba coupling studied in [Ferreira et al., Phys. Rev. A 107, 052408 (2023)], we show that the cavity provides an additional tunable means of controlling quantum correlations and energy storage. We further characterize the eDQD as a quantum battery under coherent charging and evaluate its stored energy and ergotropy. The ergotropy varies markedly across a cavity-dressing crossover resembling that identified from entanglement, connecting cavity-induced modification of the dressed states to extractable work. Optimization over the charge-photon coupling reveals parameter-dependent optimal charging regimes and enhanced maximum ergotropy with increasing Rashba coupling. Our results establish cavity coupling and SOC as complementary controls of quantum correlations and extractable energy in semiconductor eDQD-cavity systems.