Evelyn Hu (Harvard University)

Date: Thu. January 24th, 2019, 4:00 pm-4:00 pm
Location: Rockefeller 301

“Defects” as Qubits in SiC: “Inverted Atoms”

There is often a natural assumption that a “perfectly structured” material is required to produce “perfect functioning” of a device, where the function may relate to precision sensing, or the storing or transmission of information. Recently, however, there has been excitement about the performance of defects in crystalline semiconductors such as diamond and SiC. The defects are deviations from perfect, periodic crystalline order, yet can manifest optical emission at a variety of wavelengths, distinctively coupled to long spin coherence times. Rather than focusing on the defect within a semiconductor, we may “invert” the picture to that of an atomic-scale quantum mechanical bit (qubit) within a protective environment (SiC).  This talk will highlight our studies in 4H-SiC of defects (qubits), integrated within photonic amplifiers. This integrated system not only enhances the qubit signal, but also can serve as a “nanoscope” into the material, allowing us to learn about the details of their atomic environment.