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arXiv:2209.11731

Memory and transduction prospects for silicon T centre devices

Daniel B. Higginbottom, Faezeh Kimiaee Asadi, Camille Chartrand, Jia-Wei Ji, Laurent Bergeron, Michael L. W. Thewalt, Christoph Simon, Stephanie Simmons

Published Sep 23, 2022• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The T centre, a silicon-native spin-photon interface with telecommunications-band optical transitions and long-lived microwave qubits, offers an appealing new platform for both optical quantum memory and microwave to optical telecommunications band transduction. A wide range of quantum memory and transduction schemes could be implemented on such a platform, with advantages and disadvantages that depend sensitively on the ensemble properties. In this work we characterize T centre spin ensembles to inform device design. We perform the first T ensemble optical depth measurement and calculate the improvement in centre density or resonant optical enhancement required for efficient optical quantum memory. We further demonstrate a coherent microwave interface by coherent population trapping (CPT) and Autler-Townes splitting (ATS). We then determine the most promising microwave and optical quantum memory protocol for such ensembles. By estimating the memory efficiency both in free-space and in the presence of a cavity, we show that efficient optical memory is possible with forecast densities. Finally, we formulate a transduction proposal and discuss the achievable efficiency and fidelity.

DOI
10.48550/arxiv.2209.11731

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The T centre, a silicon-native spin-photon interface with telecommunications-band optical transitions and long-lived microwave qubits, offers an appealing new platform for both optical quantum memory and microwave to optical telecommunications band transduction. A wide range of quantum memory and transduction schemes could be implemented on such a platform, with advantages and disadvantages that depend sensitively on the ensemble properties. In this work we characterize T centre spin ensembles to inform device design. We perform the first T ensemble optical depth measurement and calculate the improvement in centre density or resonant optical enhancement required for efficient optical quantum memory. We further demonstrate a coherent microwave interface by coherent population trapping (CPT) and Autler-Townes splitting (ATS). We then determine the most promising microwave and optical quantum memory protocol for such ensembles. By estimating the memory efficiency both in free-space and in the presence of a cavity, we show that efficient optical memory is possible with forecast densities. Finally, we formulate a transduction proposal and discuss the achievable efficiency and fidelity.
The T center, a silicon-native spin-photon interface with telecommunication-band optical transitions and long-lived microwave qubits, offers an appealing new platform for both optical quantum memory and microwave-to-optical telecommunication-band transduction.A wide range of quantum memory and transduction schemes could be implemented withT center ensembles with sufficient optical depth, with advantages and disadvantages that depend sensitively on the ensemble properties.In this work we characterize T center spin ensembles to inform device design.We perform the first T ensemble optical depth measurement and calculate the improvement in center density or resonant optical enhancement required for efficient optical quantum memory.We further demonstrate a coherent microwave interface by coherent population trapping and Autler-Townes splitting.We then determine the most promising microwave and optical quantum memory protocol for such ensembles.By estimating the memory efficiency both in free space and in the presence of a cavity, we show that efficient optical memory is possible with reasonable optical density forecasts.Finally, we formulate a transduction proposal and discuss the achievable efficiency and fidelity.
Combining the long-coherence of spin qubits and the capability to transmit information and entanglement through photons, spin-photon interfaces (SPIs) are a promising platform for networked quantum computation and long-distance quantum communication. SPIs that possess local `memory' qubits in addition to the optically coupled `communication' qubit can improve remote entanglement fidelities through brokered entanglement schemes and entanglement purification. In these schemes, it is critical to protect the memory qubit from decoherence during entanglement operations on the communications qubit. Silicon, a platform with mature microelectronic and nanophotonic fabrication, is host to the T centre, an SPI with emission in the telecommunications O-band that directly integrates with silicon nanophotonics. Cavity-coupled T centres are a platform for brokered entanglement distribution in silicon photonic circuits and over long-distance optical fibre links. The T centre's electron and nuclear spin qubits are an intrinsic register of communication and memory qubits respectively, with anisotropic hyperfine coupling. In this work we determine the T centre's hydrogen hyperfine coupling tensor. We also introduce schemes to protect against dephasing or eliminate relaxation of the T centre's hydrogen memory qubit during optical excitation. These results address a key challenge for practical T centre quantum networks.
The performance of modular, networked quantum technologies will be strongly dependent upon the quality of their quantum light-matter interconnects. Solid-state colour centres, and in particular T centres in silicon, offer competitive technological and commercial advantages as the basis for quantum networking technologies and distributed quantum computing. These newly rediscovered silicon defects offer direct telecommunications-band photonic emission, long-lived electron and nuclear spin qubits, and proven native integration into industry-standard, CMOS-compatible, silicon-on-insulator (SOI) photonic chips at scale. Here we demonstrate further levels of integration by characterizing T centre spin ensembles in single-mode waveguides in SOI. In addition to measuring long spin T 1 times, we report on the integrated centres’ optical properties. We find that the narrow homogeneous linewidth of these waveguide-integrated emitters is already sufficiently low to predict the future success of remote spin-entangling protocols with only modest cavity Purcell enhancements. We show that further improvements may still be possible by measuring nearly lifetime-limited homogeneous linewidths in isotopically pure bulk crystals. In each case the measured linewidths are more than an order of magnitude lower than previously reported and further support the view that high-performance, large-scale distributed quantum technologies based upon T centres in silicon may be attainable in the near term.
The global quantum internet will require long-lived, telecommunications band photon-matter interfaces manufactured at scale. Preliminary quantum networks based upon photon-matter interfaces which meet a subset of these demands are encouraging efforts to identify new high-performance alternatives. Silicon is an ideal host for commercial-scale solid-state quantum technologies. It is already an advanced platform within the global integrated photonics and microelectronics industries, as well as host to record-setting long-lived spin qubits. Despite the overwhelming potential of the silicon quantum platform, the optical detection of individually addressable photon-spin interfaces in silicon has remained elusive. In this work we produce tens of thousands of individually addressable `TTT centre' photon-spin qubits in integrated silicon photonic structures, and characterize their spin-dependent telecommunications-band optical transitions. These results unlock immediate opportunities to construct silicon-integrated, telecommunications-band quantum information networks.
Global quantum networks will benefit from the reliable creation and control of high-performance solid-state telecom photon-spin interfaces. T radiation damage centres in silicon provide a promising photon-spin interface due to their narrow O-band optical transition near 1326 nm and long-lived electron and nuclear spin lifetimes. To date, these defect centres have only been studied as ensembles in bulk silicon. Here, we demonstrate the reliable creation of high concentration T centre ensembles in the 220 nm device layer of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) wafers by ion implantation and subsequent annealing. We then develop a method that uses spin-dependent optical transitions to benchmark the characteristic optical spectral diffusion within these T centre ensembles. Using this new technique, we show that with minimal optimization to the fabrication process high densities of implanted T centres localized $\lesssim$100 nm from an interface display ~1 GHz characteristic levels of total spectral diffusion.