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Coherent spin–photon coupling using a resonant exchange qubit

Nature volume 560, pages 179–184 (2018)Cite this article

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Abstract

Electron spins hold great promise for quantum computation because of their long coherence times. Long-distance coherent coupling of spins is a crucial step towards quantum information processing with spin qubits. One approach to realizing interactions between distant spin qubits is to use photons as carriers of quantum information. Here we demonstrate strong coupling between single microwave photons in a niobium titanium nitride high-impedance resonator and a three-electron spin qubit (also known as a resonant exchange qubit) in a gallium arsenide device consisting of three quantum dots. We observe the vacuum Rabi mode splitting of the resonance of the resonator, which is a signature of strong coupling; specifically, we observe a coherent coupling strength of about 31 megahertz and a qubit decoherence rate of about 20 megahertz. We can tune the decoherence electrostatically to obtain a minimal decoherence rate of around 10 megahertz for a coupling strength of around 23 megahertz. We directly measure the dependence of the qubit–photon coupling strength on the tunable electric dipole moment of the qubit using the ‘AC Stark’ effect. Our demonstration of strong qubit–photon coupling for a three-electron spin qubit is an important step towards coherent long-distance coupling of spin qubits.

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Fig. 1: Hybrid quantum device and vacuum Rabi splitting.
Fig. 2: Spin-qubit operation regime.
Fig. 3: Resonator response.
Fig. 4: Resonator spectrum at the saddle point in the qubit energy.
Fig. 5: Qubit spectroscopy.
Fig. 6: AC Stark shift.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge discussions with M. Russ and A. Stockklauser. We thank M. Collodo, P. Kurpiers and P. Märki for contributions to our experimental set-up. This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation through the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) Quantum Science and Technology. U.C.M. and A.B. were supported by NSERC and the Canada First Research Excellence fund.

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Nature thanks T. Meunier and the other anonymous reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: A. J. Landig, J. V. Koski

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, ETH Zürich, Zurich, Switzerland

    A. J. Landig, J. V. Koski, P. Scarlino, C. Reichl, W. Wegscheider, A. Wallraff, K. Ensslin & T. Ihn

  2. Institut quantique and Départment de Physique, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada

    U. C. Mendes & A. Blais

  3. Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    A. Blais

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  1. A. J. Landig
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Contributions

A.J.L., J.V.K. and P.S. fabricated the device. A.J.L. and J.V.K. performed the experiments. A.J.L. and J.V.K. analysed the data. U.C.M. and A.B. provided theory support for the experiment. C.R. and W.W. grew the wafer material. A.J.L., J.V.K., T.I. and U.C.M. wrote the manuscript with the input of all authors. A.W., K.E. and T.I. supervised the experiment.

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Correspondence to A. J. Landig.

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Supplementary Information

This file contains Supplementary Methods S1-S5 and Supplementary Figures S1-S2

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Landig, A.J., Koski, J.V., Scarlino, P. et al. Coherent spin–photon coupling using a resonant exchange qubit. Nature 560, 179–184 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0365-y

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