Detector for the single-electron magnet discovered – pathway to quantum computing
28.09.2010
Researchers from University of New South Wales (Australia), University of Melbourne (Australia), and Aalto University (Finland) have succeeded in demonstrating a high-fidelity detection scheme for the magnetic state of a single electron, that is, the spin. Their work was published in Nature on 26 September.
The silicon industry is the basis of almost all commercial electronics today. In microelectronics, for example in computer industry, less expensive, more powerful, and less power consuming microprocessors are sought constantly. A partial solution is potentially given by so-called quantum computer which uses the “spin”, or magnetic orientation, of individual electrons to represent data in their calculations.
In the recent work of the Australian-Finnish research team, Dr. Andrea Morello, Prof. Andrew Dzurak, and coworkers were able for the first time to measure and initialize the magnetic spin state of a single electron confined in a volume with a diameter of only a few nanometers by the strong attractive force of a single phosphorus donor atom. The ultimate goal of these studies is to build a large-scale quantum computer, in which electron spins work as quantum bits, qubits. The success of this goal would give birth to a new era in information processing.
“In hard disk drives, one uses presently at least millions of spins to store a single bit of information. Now we have found a way to handle a single spin in silicon, which is the longed-for triumph in our research field”, says Dr. Mikko Möttönen, the Finnish collaborator in the work.
A spin can be understood as a tiny bar magnet. In fact, the magnetism in the usual bar magnets is provided by extremely many single spins which align, thus enforcing each other.
“Recently, we measured the single-atom transistor and now the single electron spin in real time. I would not be surprised if we had a working qubit in near future”, Möttönen continues with great expectations.
The article has been published in Nature on Sep. 26th, 2010:
Single-shot readout of an electron spin in silicon
Andrea Morello, Jarryd J. Pla, Floris A. Zwanenburg, Kok W. Chan, Kuan Y. Tan, Hans Huebl, Mikko Möttönen, Christopher D. Nugroho, Changyi Yang, Jessica A. van Donkelaar, Andrew D. C. Alves, David N. Jamieson, Christopher C. Escott, Lloyd C. L. Hollenberg, Robert G. Clark, and Andrew S. Dzurak.
More information:
Australian press release on the same topic:
http://www.scienceinpublic.com/blog/other/qc_nature
The release of the single-atom transistor work from the same group:
http://www.tkk.fi/en/current_affairs/news/view/yhden_atomin_transistori_loydetty/
Dr. Mikko Möttönen
Department of Applied Physics
Aalto University
mikko.mottonen [at] tkk [dot] fi
+358 9 470 22342 or +358 50 594 0950
Dr. Andrea Morello
Centre for Quantum Computer Technology
University of New South Wales
a.morello [at] unsw [dot] edu [dot] au
+61422543261
Prof. Andrew Dzurak
Centre for Quantum Computer Technology
University of New South Wales
a.dzurak [at] unsw [dot] edu [dot] au
+61293856311
