David Awschalom is the Liew Family Professor and Director of the Quantum Engineering Theme at the University of Chicago Pritzker School for Molecular Engineering, a Senior Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, and Founding Director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange. He is also the inaugural Director of Q-NEXT, one of the US DOE Quantum Information Science Research Centers. He works in the fields of spintronics and quantum information engineering, exploring and controlling the spins of electrons, nuclei, and photons in semiconductors and molecules. His research includes implementations of information processing with potential applications in quantum computing, communication, and sensing.
Professor Awschalom received his BSc in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his PhD in experimental physics from Cornell University. He was a research staff member and manager of the Nonequilibrium Physics Department at the IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. In 1991 he joined the University of California-Santa Barbara as a professor of physics, and in 2001 was additionally appointed as a professor of electrical and computer engineering. Prior to joining PME, he served as the Peter J. Clarke Professor and Director of the California NanoSystems Institute, and director of the Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation.
Professor Awschalom received the American Physical Society Oliver Buckley Prize and Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize, the European Physical Society Europhysics Prize, the Materials Research Society David Turnbull Award and Outstanding Investigator Prize, the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize, the International Magnetism Prize from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, and an IBM Outstanding Innovation Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the European Academy of Sciences. Awschalom recently received a U.S. Secretary of Energy Achievement Award.
Awschalom Group explores optical and magnetic interactions in semiconductor quantum structures, spin dynamics and coherence in condensed matter systems, macroscopic quantum phenomena in nanometer-scale magnets, and implementations of quantum information processing in the solid state. He developed a variety of femtosecond-resolved spatiotemporal spectroscopies and micromagnetic sensing techniques aimed at exploring charge and spin motion in the quantum domain. These measurements resulted in the discovery of robust electron spin coherence, transport of coherent states, and the spin Hall effect in semiconductors.
Minute-long quantum coherence enabled by electrical depletion of magnetic noise
C. Zeledon, B. Pingault, J. C. Marcks, M. Onizhuk, Y. Tsaturyan, Y.-X. Wang, B. S. Soloway, H. Abe, M. Ghezellou, J. Ul-Hassan, T. Ohshima, N. T. Son, F. J. Heremans, G. Galli, C. P. Anderson, D. D. Awschalom. Minute-long quantum coherence enabled by electrical depletion of magnetic noise. 2025. arXiv:2504.13164
First-Principles Framework for the Prediction of Intersystem Crossing Rates in Spin Defects: The Role of Electron Correlation
Y. Jin, J. Park, M. M. McMillan, D. D. Ohm, C. Barnes, B. Pingault, C. Egerstrom, B. Huang, M. Govoni, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom, G. Galli. First-Principles Framework for the Prediction of Intersystem Crossing Rates in Spin Defects: The Role of Electron Correlation. 2025. arXiv:2502.19658
Nuclear Spin Engineering for Quantum Information Science
J. C. Marcks, B. Pingault, J. Zhang, C. Zeledon, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom. Nuclear Spin Engineering for Quantum Information Science. 2025. arXiv:2502.18450
A fluorescent-protein spin qubit
J.S. Feder, B. S. Soloway, S. Verma, Z. Z. Geng, S. Wang, B. Kifle, E. G. Riendeau, Y. Tsaturyan, L. R. Weiss, M. Xie, J. Huang, A. Esser-Kahn, L. Gagliardi, D. D. Awschalom, P. C. Maurer. A fluorescent-protein spin qubit. 2024. arXiv:2411.16835
Optical and spin coherence of Er3+ in epitaxial CeO2 on silicon
J. Zhang, G. D. Grant, I. Masiulionis, M. T. Solomon, J. K. Bindra, J. Niklas, A. M. Dibos, O. G. Poluektov, F. J. Heremans, S. Guha, D. D. Awschalom. Optical and spin coherence of Er3+ in epitaxial CeO2 on silicon. 2024. npj Quantum Inf. 10.1038/s41534-024-00903-z
Practical hybrid PQC-QKD protocols with enhanced security and performance
P. Zeng, D. Bandyopadhyay, J. A. M. Méndez, N. Bitner, A. Kolar, M. T. Solomon, Z. Ye, F. Rozpȩdek, T. Zhong, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom, L. Jiang, J. Liu. Practical hybrid PQC-QKD protocols with enhanced security and performance. 2024. arXiv:2411.01086
Towards efficient and secure quantum-classical communication networks
P. Zeng, D. Bandyopadhyay, J. A. M. Méndez, N. Bitner, A. Kolar, M. T. Solomon, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom, L. Jiang, J. Liu. Towards efficient and secure quantum-classical communication networks. 2024. arXiv:2411.01081
Controlled Spalling of Single Crystal 4H-SiC Bulk Substrates
C. P. Horn, C. Wicker, A. Wellisz, C. Zeledon, P. V. K. Nittala, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom, S. Guha. Controlled Spalling of Single Crystal 4H-SiC Bulk Substrates. 2024. ACS Nano. 10.1021/acsnano.4c10978
Extended spin relaxation times of optically addressed vanadium defects in silicon carbide at telecommunication frequencies (Phys. Rev. Applied Editors' Suggestion)
J. Ahn, C. Wicker, N. Bitner, M. T. Solomon, B. Tissot, G. Burkard, A. M. Dibos, J. Zhang, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom. Extended spin relaxation times of optically addressed vanadium defects in silicon carbide at telecommunication frequencies. 2024. Phys. Rev. Applied 10.1103/PhysRevApplied.22.044078
Direct-bonded diamond membranes for heterogeneous quantum and electronic technologies
X. Guo, M. Xie, A. Addhya, A. Linder, U. Zvi, S. Wang, X. Yu, T. D. Deshmukh, Y. Liu, I. N. Hammock, Z. Li, C. T. DeVault, A. Butcher, A. P. Esser-Kahn, D. D. Awschalom, N. Delegan, P. C. Maurer, F. J. Heremans, A. A. High. Direct-bonded diamond membranes for heterogeneous quantum and electronic technologies. 2024. Nat. Comm. 10.1038/s41467-024-53150-3