Awschalom Group

Spintronics, solid-state, and molecular quantum information science for computing, sensing, and communication
David Awschalom and large group of young adults standing outside

Our group research focuses on optical, electronic, and magnetic interactions in solid state quantum structures, spin dynamics and coherence in condensed matter systems (“spintronics”), and implementations of quantum computing, communication and sensing with semiconductors and molecules.

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TEDxChicago: The Future Is Human

Watch Professor Awschalom talk about quantum science.

Physics World Weekly

Podcasts

Listen to Professor Awschalom discuss the future of quantum science and engineering in Chicago on the Physics World Weekly podcast in 2025, as well as on the Big Brains podcast in 2022.

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Principal Investigator

David Awschalom

David Awschalom

Publications
Emergent anisotropic three-phase order in critically doped superconducting diamond films
J. Dwivedi, J. Morris, S. Islam, K. D. Halanayake, G. A. Vazquez-Lizardi, D. Snyder, A. Richardella, L. Lyle, D. R. Hickey, N. Delegan, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom, N. Samarth
J. Dwivedi, J. Morris, S. Islam, K. D. Halanayake, G. A. Vazquez-Lizardi, D. Snyder, A. Richardella, L. Lyle, D. R. Hickey, N. Delegan, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom, N. Samarth. Emergent anisotropic three-phase order in critically doped superconducting diamond films. 2025. arXiv:2506.09925
PNAS
2026
10.60551/rxfx-9h58
Spin Dynamics from Atomistic Quantum Simulations
E. Drigo, M. M. McMillan, B. Pingault, Y. Dong, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom, G. Galli.
E. Drigo, M. M. McMillan, B. Pingault, Y. Dong, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom, G. Galli. Spin Dynamics from Atomistic Quantum Simulations. 2026. 10.48550/arXiv.2605.04294
ArXiV
2026
10.48550/arXiv.2605.04294
Optimizing spin qubit coherence through materials codesign
V. Somjit, G. Grant, S. Chattaraj, S. Guha, D. D. Awschalom, G. Galli, J. Zhang, F. J. Heremans
V. Somjit, G. Grant, S. Chattaraj, S. Guha, D. D. Awschalom, G. Galli, J. Zhang, F. J. Heremans. Optimizing spin qubit coherence through materials codesign. 2026. 10.1557/s43577-026-01069-z
MRS Bulletin
2026
10.1557/s43577-026-01069-z
Heterogeneously Integrated Diamond-on-Lithium Niobate Quantum Photonic Platform
S. W. Ding, C. Jin, Z. Li, N. Achuthan, K. Kuruma, X. Guo, B. Grinkemeyer, D. D. Awschalom, N. Delegan, F. J. Heremans, A. A. High, M. Loncar
S. W. Ding, C. Jin, Z. Li, N. Achuthan, K. Kuruma, X. Guo, B. Grinkemeyer, D. D. Awschalom, N. Delegan, F. J. Heremans, A. A. High, M. Loncar. Heterogeneously Integrated Diamond-on-Lithium Niobate Quantum Photonic Platform. 2026. 10.48550/arXiv.2603.08609
ArXiV
2026
10.48550/arXiv.2603.08609
A Surface-Scaffolded Molecular Qubit
T. Zheng, M. I. B. Utama, X. Gao, M. Kar, X. Yu, S. Kang, H. Cai, T. Ruan, D. Ovetsky, U. Zvi, G. Lao, Y. Wang, O. Raz, S. Chitransh, G. T. Smith, L. R. Weiss, M. H. Czyz, S. Yang, A. J. Fairhall, K. Watanabe, T. Taniguchi, D. D. Awschalom, A. P. Alivisatos, R. H. Goldsmith, G. C. Schatz, M. C. Hersam, P. C. Maurer
T. Zheng, M. I. B. Utama, X. Gao, M. Kar, X. Yu, S. Kang, H. Cai, T. Ruan, D. Ovetsky, U. Zvi, G. Lao, Y. Wang, O. Raz, S. Chitransh, G. T. Smith, L. R. Weiss, M. H. Czyz, S. Yang, A. J. Fairhall, K. Watanabe, T. Taniguchi, D. D. Awschalom, A. P. Alivisatos, R. H. Goldsmith, G. C. Schatz, M. C. Hersam, P. C. Maurer. A Surface-Scaffolded Molecular Qubit. 2026. 10.48550/arXiv.2601.19976
ArXiV
2026
10.48550/arXiv.2601.19976
Spin decoherence dynamics of Er3+ in CeO2 film
S. K. Seth, J. Nagura, V. Somjit, A. Bapat, X. Li, G. D. Grant, I. Masiulionis, X. Han, F. J. Heremans, G. Galli, D. D. Awschalom, S. Guha, J. Zhang
S. K. Seth, J. Nagura, V. Somjit, A. Bapat, X. Li, G. D. Grant, I. Masiulionis, X. Han, F. J. Heremans, G. Galli, D. D. Awschalom, S. Guha, J. Zhang. Spin decoherence dynamics of Er3+ in CeO2 film. 2025. Physical Review Letters. 10.1103/17xy-gns1
Physical Review Letters
2025
10.1103/17xy-gns1
Valley splitting correlations across a silicon quantum well containing germanium
J. C. Marcks, E. Eagen, E. C. Brann, M. P. Losert, T. Oh, J. Reily, C. S. Wang, D. Keith, F. A. Mohiyaddin, F. Luthi, M. J. Curry, J. Zhang, F. J. Heremans, M. Friesen, M. A. Eriksson
J. C. Marcks, E. Eagen, E. C. Brann, M. P. Losert, T. Oh, J. Reily, C. S. Wang, D. Keith, F. A. Mohiyaddin, F. Luthi, M. J. Curry, J. Zhang, F. J. Heremans, M. Friesen, M. A. Eriksson. Valley Splitting Correlations Across a Silicon Quantum Well. 2025. Nature Communications. 10.1038/s41467-025-67325-z
Nature Communications
2025
10.1038/s41467-025-67325-z
Challenges and opportunities for quantum information hardware
D. D. Awschalom, H. Bernien, R. Hanson, W. D. Oliver, J. Vučković
D. D. Awschalom, H. Bernien, R. Hanson, W. D. Oliver, J. Vučković. Challenges and opportunities for quantum information hardware. 2025. Science. 10.1126/science.adz8659
Science
2025
10.1126/science.adz8659
High-throughput spin-bath characterization of spin defects in semiconductors
A. N. Poteshman, M. Onizhuk, C. Egerstrom, D. P. Mark, D. D. Awschalom, F. J. Heremans, G. Galli
A. N. Poteshman, M. Onizhuk, C. Egerstrom, D. P. Mark, D. D. Awschalom, F. J. Heremans, G. Galli. High-throughput spin-bath characterization of spin defects in semiconductors. 2025. Physical Review Applied. 10.1103/p57x-8kk7
Physical Review Applied
2025
10.1103/p57x-8kk7
Microstructural and preliminary optical and microwave characterization of erbium doped CaMoO4 thin films
I. Masiulionis, B. Y.X. Lin, S. Kumar Seth, G. D. Grant, W. L. Lindquist, S. Kim, J. Kim, A. Yanguas-Gil, J. W. Elam, J. Zhang, J. M. LeBeau, D. D. Awschalom, S. Guha
I. Masiulionis, B. Y.X. Lin, S. Kumar Seth, G. D. Grant, W. L. Lindquist, S. Kim, J. Kim, A. Yanguas-Gil, J. W. Elam, J. Zhang, J. M. LeBeau, D. D. Awschalom, S. Guha. Microstructural and preliminary optical and microwave characterization of erbium doped CaMoO4 thin films. 2025. APL Materials. 10.1063/5.0288887
APL Materials
2025
10.1063/5.0288887
View all Publications
Group Members

Yi Cui

Schmidt AI in Science Fellow (co-advised by Paul Alivisatos)

S. Carin Gavin

Postdoctoral Scholar and AIMR Joint Research Scientist at Tohoku University

Chris Wang

Assistant Staff Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory
Collaborators
NameInstitution
Paul AlivisatosUniversity of Chicago
Dimitri BasovUniversity of California, San Diego
Guido BurkardUniversity of Konstanz
Andrew ClelandUniversity of Chicago
David DiVincenzoRWTH Aachen
Viatcheslav DobrovitskiAmes Laboratory and Iowa State University
Philip FengCase Western Reserve University
Michael FlattéUniversity of Iowa
Danna FreedmanMassachusetts Institute of Technology
Adam GaliBudapest University of Technology and Economics
Ronald HansonTU Delft
Mark HersamNorthwestern University
Evelyn HuHarvard University
Ania Bleszynski JayichUniversity of California, Santa Barbara
H. Jeff KimbleCalifornia Institute of Technology
Jeremy LevyUniversity of Pittsburgh
Jeff LongUniversity of California, Berkeley
Daniel LossUniversity of Basel
Roberto MyersThe Ohio State University
Hideo OhnoTohoku University
Joe OrensteinUniversity of California, Berkeley
Oskar PainterCalifornia Institute of Technology
Chris PalmstrømUniversity of California, Santa Barbara
Peter RakichYale University
Dan RugarIBM Almaden Research Center
Nitin SamarthPennsylvania State University
Thomas SchenkelLawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Darrell SchlomCornell University
David SchusterUniversity of Chicago
Chris van de WalleUniversity of California, Santa Barbara
Stephan von MolnarFlorida State University
Jelena VuckovicStanford University
Ali YazdaniPrinceton University
Alumni

Chris Anderson

Postdoctoral and Graduate Student Alumnus;
Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Lee Bassett

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania

Sam Bayliss

Postdoctoral alumnus;
Electronics and Nanoscale Division of the James Watt School of Engineering,
University of Glasgow

Jesse Berezovsky

Graduate Student Alumni;
Department of Physics, Case Western Reserve University

Hope Bretscher

Undergraduate Student Alumni;
Department of Physics, University of Cambridge

Bob Buckley

Graduate Student Alumni
Freedom Photonics, Santa Barbara, California

Darius Choksy

Undergraduate Student Alumni;
Department of Physics, UC San Diego

David Christle

Graduate Student Alumni
LinkedIn Corporation, Mountain View, California

Agnetta Cleland

Undergraduate Student Alumni;
Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University

Alex Crook

Graduate Student Alumnus;
Google, Santa Barbara, CA

Scott Crooker

Graduate Student Alumni;
Los Alamos National Laboratory / NHMFL

Paul Crowell

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Physics, University of Minnesota

Pratiti Deb

Graduate Student Alumnus;
Department of Physics, Yale University

Abram Falk

Postdoctoral Alumni;
IBM Watson Research Center

Jacob Feder

Graduate Student Alumni
(co-advised by Peter Maurer);
Triplet Imaging

Greg Fuchs

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University

Masaya Fukami

Postdoctoral and Graduate Student Alumnus; PsiQuantum, Palo Alto, CA

Sai Ghosh

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Physics, UC Merced

Elena Glen

Graduate Student Alumnus;
EeroQ Quantum Hardware

Jay Gupta

Graduate Student Alumni;
Department of Physics, The Ohio State University

Michael Haas

Undergraduate Student Alumni;
Department of Applied Physics, Harvard University

Ronald Hanson

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Physics, Delft University of Technology

Jack Harris

Graduate Student Alumni;
Department of Physics, Yale University

Viva Horowitz

Graduate Student Alumni;
Department of Physics, Hamilton College

Paul Jerger

Graduate Student Alumnus;
Materials & Microsystems Laboratory, HRL Laboratories

Yuichiro Kato

Graduate Student Alumni;
Department of Applied Physics, University of Tokyo

Roland Kawakami

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Physics, The Ohio State University

Jay Kikkawa

Graduate Student Alumni;
Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Physics, University of Pennsylvania

Paul Klimov

Graduate Student Alumni;
Google, Santa Barbara, California

Rob Knobel

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Physics, Queen's University

Hadrian Knotz

Graduate Student Alumni;
Senior Systems Architect, Solver, Inc.

William Koehl

Graduate Student Alumni;
Quantum Computing Research, Northrop Grumman Corporation

Wayne Lau

Postdoctoral Alumni;
EPIR Technologies Inc.

Hope Lee

Undergraduate Student Alumni; Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University

Seung Hwan Lee

Undergraduate Student Alumni;
Department of Physics, Harvard University

Jeremy Levy

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Physics, University of Pittsburgh

Yongqing Li

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Max Planck Institute, Stuttgart

Shawn Mack

Graduate Student Alumni;
Naval Research Laboratory

Brian Maertz

Graduate Student Alumni;
Freedom Photonics, Santa Barbara, California

Kevin Miao

Graduate Student Alumni;
Google, Santa Barbara, CA

Maiken Mikkelsen

Graduate Student Alumni;
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University

Roberto Myers

Graduate Student Alumni;
Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University

Kenichi Ohno

Graduate Student Alumni;
Applied Materials, Santa Clara, California

Min Ouyang

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Physics, University of Maryland

Ananya Pillutla

Undergraduate Student Alumni;
Marshall, Gerstein & Borun, Chicago, Illinois

Martino Poggio

Graduate Student Alumni;
Department of Physics, University of Basel

Alberto Politi

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Physics, University of Southampton

Mouktik Raha

Postdoctoral Alumnus; AWS Center for Quantum Networking

Gian Salis

Postdoctoral Alumni;
IBM Zurich Research Laboratory

Jing Shi

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Physics, UC Riverside

Vanessa Sih

Graduate Student Alumni;
Department of Physics, University of Michigan

Geoff Steeves

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Physics, University of Victoria

Jason Stephens

Graduate Student Alumni;
Postdoctoral Alumni;
Thinsilicon Corporation

Nate Stern

Graduate Student Alumni
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University

Joost van Bree

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Advanced Semiconductor Materials International (ASML)

Maya Watts

GEM Fellow Alumni;
Department of Physics, Northwestern University

Marie Wesson

Undergraduate Student Alumni;
Department of Applied Physics, Harvard University

Gary Wolfowicz

Postdoctoral and Assistant Staff Scientist Alumnus;
Photonic Inc

Xu Xiao

Undergraduate Student Alumni;
Department of Physics, Yale University

Brian Zhou

Postdoctoral Alumni;
Department of Physics, Boston College

Yizhi Zhu

Graduate Student Alumni
(co-advised by Giulia Galli)

Current Research

Spin Dynamics and Quantum Information Processing in Semiconductors and Molecules

Our group studies spin dynamics in semiconductors and molecules to engineer quantum states for sensing, communication, and computing. By combining quantum optics, electron-spin resonance, materials engineering, and nanofabrication, we develop tools and explore new systems that advance quantum coherence in emerging materials.

To read more about our studies, explore the links below:

Quantum Information Processing in Diamond Spin Control in Silicon Carbide and Other Materials Creating and Controlling Molecular Spin Qubits Other Material and Qubit Platforms

Other Research and Focus

Spintronics Magnetism Measurement Techniques

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