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Notch filtering the nuclear environment of a spin qubit

Nature Nanotechnology volume 12, pages 16–20 (2017)Cite this article

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Abstract

Electron spins in gate-defined quantum dots provide a promising platform for quantum computation1,2,3,4,5,6,7. In particular, spin-based quantum computing in gallium arsenide takes advantage of the high quality of semiconducting materials, reliability in fabricating arrays of quantum dots and accurate qubit operations5,6,7,8,9,10. However, the effective magnetic noise arising from the hyperfine interaction with uncontrolled nuclear spins in the host lattice constitutes a major source of decoherence4,5,10,11. Low-frequency nuclear noise, responsible for fast (10 ns) inhomogeneous dephasing5, can be removed by echo techniques4,5,11,12,13,14. High-frequency nuclear noise, recently studied via echo revivals4,11, occurs in narrow-frequency bands related to differences in Larmor precession of the three isotopes 69Ga, 71Ga and 75As (refs 15,16,17). Here, we show that both low- and high-frequency nuclear noise can be filtered by appropriate dynamical decoupling sequences, resulting in a substantial enhancement of spin qubit coherence times. Using nuclear notch filtering, we demonstrate a spin coherence time (T2) of 0.87 ms, five orders of magnitude longer than typical exchange gate times, and exceeding the longest coherence times reported to date in Si/SiGe gate-defined quantum dots18,19.

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Figure 1: Singlet–triplet qubit interacting with a nuclear spin bath.
Figure 2: Frequency-selective dynamical decoupling.
Figure 3: Revival of coherence due to decoupling from nuclear Larmor precession.
Figure 4: Effect of magnetic field and τ on qubit coherence.
Figure 5: Singlet return probability, PS, as a function of total separation time, T = nτ, for optimized and fixed values of τ and Bext.

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Change history

  • 26 October 2016

    In the version of this Letter originally published online, in Fig. 2c, the x axis label was missing. This error has been corrected in all versions of the Letter.

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Acknowledgements

We thank R. Eriksen for help in preparation of the reflectometry set-up. This work was supported by IARPA Multi-Qubit Coherent Operations (MQCO) programme, LPS-MPO-CMTC, the Polish National Science Centre (NCN) under grant no. DEC-2012/07/B/ST3/03616, the Army Research Office, the Villum Foundation and the Danish National Research Foundation.

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Author notes

  1. Filip K. Malinowski and Frederico Martins: These authors contributed equally to this work

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Quantum Devices and Station Q Copenhagen, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, 2100, Denmark

    Filip K. Malinowski, Frederico Martins, Peter D. Nissen, Mark S. Rudner, Charles M. Marcus & Ferdinand Kuemmeth

  2. Department of Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, 24061, Virginia, USA

    Edwin Barnes

  3. Department of Physics, Condensed Matter Theory Center and Joint Quantum Institute, University of Maryland, College Park, 20742-4111, Maryland, USA

    Edwin Barnes

  4. Institute of Physics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Aleja Lotnikow 32/46, Warsaw, PL-02668, Poland

    Łukasz Cywiński

  5. Niels Bohr International Academy, Niels Bohr Institute, Copenhagen, 2100, Denmark

    Mark S. Rudner

  6. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Birck Nanotechnology Center, and Station Q Purdue, Purdue University, West Lafayette, 47907, Indiana, USA

    Saeed Fallahi, Geoffrey C. Gardner & Michael J. Manfra

  7. School of Materials Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, 47907, Indiana, USA

    Geoffrey C. Gardner & Michael J. Manfra

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Contributions

S.F., G.C.G. and M.J.M. grew the heterostructure. P.D.N. fabricated the device. F.M., P.D.N., F.K. and F.K.M. prepared the experimental set-up. F.K.M., F.M. and F.K. performed the experiment. E.B., Ł.C. and M.S.R. developed the theoretical model and performed simulations. F.K.M., F.K., F.M., E.B., Ł.C., M.S.R. and C.M.M. analysed data and prepared the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Ferdinand Kuemmeth.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Malinowski, F., Martins, F., Nissen, P. et al. Notch filtering the nuclear environment of a spin qubit. Nature Nanotech 12, 16–20 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nnano.2016.170

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