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A hole spin qubit in a fin field-effect transistor above 4 kelvin

Abstract

The greatest challenge in quantum computing is achieving scalability. Classical computing, which previously faced such issues, currently relies on silicon chips hosting billions of fin field-effect transistors. These devices are small enough for quantum applications: at low temperatures, an electron or hole trapped under the gate can serve as a spin qubit. Such an approach potentially allows the quantum hardware and its classical control electronics to be integrated on the same chip. However, this requires qubit operation at temperatures above 1 K, where the cooling overcomes heat dissipation. Here we show that silicon fin field-effect transistors can host spin qubits operating above 4 K. We achieve fast electrical control of hole spins with driving frequencies up to 150 MHz, single-qubit gate fidelities at the fault-tolerance threshold and a Rabi-oscillation quality factor greater than 87. Our devices feature both industry compatibility and quality, and are fabricated in a flexible and agile way that should accelerate further development.

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Fig. 1: Spin–orbit qubits in a FinFET.
Fig. 2: Hot qubit coherence.
Fig. 3: X, Y and Z qubit gates.
Fig. 4: Dynamical decoupling and noise spectroscopy.

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Data availability

The data supporting the plots within this paper are available at the Zenodo repository: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4579586

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. de Kruijf, C. Kloeffel, D. Loss, F. Froning and F. Braakman for fruitful discussions. Moreover, we acknowledge support by the cleanroom operation team, particularly U. Drechsler, A. Olziersky and D. D. Pineda, at the IBM Binnig and Rohrer Nanotechnology Center, as well as technical support at the University of Basel by S. Martin and M. Steinacher. This work was partially supported by the Georg H. Endress Foundation, the NCCR SPIN, the Swiss Nanoscience Institute (SNI), the Swiss NSF (grant no. 179024), and the EU H2020 European Microkelvin Platform EMP (grant no. 824109). L.C.C. acknowledges support by a Swiss NSF mobility fellowship (P2BSP2_200127).

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A.V.K., L.C.C., S.G., A.F., R.J.W. and D.M.Z. conceived the project and experiments. A.V.K. and S.G. fabricated the device. L.C.C. and D.M.Z. prepared the cryogenic measurement setup. A.V.K., S.G., L.C.C. and D.M.Z. performed the experiments. A.V.K., L.C.C. and S.G. analysed the data and wrote the manuscript with input from all the authors.

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Correspondence to Dominik M. Zumbühl or Andreas V. Kuhlmann.

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Nature Electronics thanks Xavier Jehl, Andre Saraiva and Tetsufumi Tanamoto for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Camenzind, L.C., Geyer, S., Fuhrer, A. et al. A hole spin qubit in a fin field-effect transistor above 4 kelvin. Nat Electron 5, 178–183 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41928-022-00722-0

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