Strong coupling of a single electron in silicon to a microwave photon

Abstract

Inducing strong coupling Quantum dots, or artificial atoms, are being pursued as prospective building blocks for quantum information processing architectures. Communication with other, distant quantum dots requires strong coupling between photons and the electronic states of the dots. Mi et al. used double quantum dots defined in silicon and embedded in a superconducting cavity to achieve such coupling. This demonstration in an industry-relevant material bodes well for the large-scale development of semiconductor-based quantum processors. Science, this issue p. 156 Strong coupling can be achieved between a microwave cavity photon and a single electron in a silicon quantum dot. Silicon is vital to the computing industry because of the high quality of its native oxide and well-established doping technologies. Isotopic purification has enabled quantum coherence times on the order of seconds, thereby placing silicon at the forefront of efforts to create a solid-state quantum processor. We demonstrate strong coupling of a single electron in a silicon double quantum dot to the photonic field of a microwave cavity, as shown by the observation of vacuum Rabi splitting. Strong coupling of a quantum dot electron to a cavity photon would allow for long-range qubit coupling and the long-range entanglement of electrons in semiconductor quantum dots.