Awschalom Group

Spintronics, solid-state quantum information, and nanoscale sensing

Recent News

Our group has active research activities in optical and magnetic interactions in semiconductor quantum structures, spin dynamics and coherence in condensed matter systems (“spintronics”), macroscopic quantum phenomena in nanometer-scale magnets, and implementations of quantum information and sensing in the solid state.

 

Principal Investigator

David Awschalom

David Awschalom

awsch@uchicago.edu

Spin Dynamics and Quantum Information Processing in the Solid State

Our group is primarily concerned with understanding electron and nuclear spin dynamics in semiconductors and engineering quantum states for information processing and sensing applications. Our experimental program combines quantum optics with electron-spin resonance, materials engineering, and nanofabrication. We are focused on developing experimental tools and uncovering new systems that could expand the technological impact of quantum coherence in the solid state. Certain point defects in semiconductors, such as the nitrogen vacancy center in diamond or the neutral divacancy in silicon carbide, exhibit long-lived spin coherence that persist up to room temperature. Harnessing these defects as atomic-scale probes of electromagnetic fields promises to lead to nanoscale nuclear magnetic resonance, new tools for bio-sensing, and a better understanding of semiconductor electronics.

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

Quantum Information Processing in Diamond

The fundamental quantum-mechanical nature of spin makes it an ideal candidate for use as a quantum bit, the basic unit of information in a quantum computing architecture. Individual spins may be initialized, coherently controlled, and read out using a variety of optical and electronic techniques. In particular, point defects in crystals have many analogous properties to atoms trapped in vacuum, including localized electronic states and sharp optical and spin transitions. In certain defects, electronic spin states are insulated from lattice dynamics, leading to long quantum coherence times that persist even up to room temperature.

Spin Control in Silicon Carbide and Other Materials

We are exploring defects in a variety of wide-bandgap materials, such as the divacancy in silicon carbide (SiC). We investigate these defects for both fundamental and applied studies of quantum information processing as well as for developing hybrid quantum systems and nanoscale sensing.

Coherent control and high-fidelity readout of chromium ions in commercial silicon carbide

Diler, B., Whiteley, S.J., Anderson, C.P. et al. Coherent control and high-fidelity readout of chromium ions in commercial silicon carbide. npj Quantum Inf 6, 11 (2020).

Spatiotemporal mapping of photocurrent in a monolayer semiconductor using a diamond quantum sensor

B. B. Zhou, P. C. Jerger, K.-H. Lee, M. Fukami, F. Mujid, J. Park, D. D. Awschalom. Spatiotemporal mapping of photocurrent in a monolayer semiconductor using a diamond quantum sensor. Phys. Rev. X. 2020. Vol. 20, Pg. 011003.

Electrical and optical control of single spins integrated in scalable semiconductor devices

C. P. Anderson, A. Bourassa, K. C. Miao, G. Wolfowicz, P. J. Mintun, A. L. Crook, H. Abe, J. U. Hassan, N. T. Son, T. Ohshima, D. D. Awschalom. Electrical and optical control of single spins integrated in scalable semiconductor devices. Science. 2019. Vol. 366, Pg. 1225.

Electrically driven optical interferometry with spins in silicon carbide

K. C. Miao, A. Bourassa, C. P. Anderson, S. J. Whiteley, A. L. Crook, S. L. Bayliss, G. Wolfowicz, G. Thiering, P. Udvarhelyi, V. Ivady, H. Abe, T. Ohshima, A. Gali, D. D. Awschalom. Electrically driven optical interferometry with spins in silicon carbide. Science Advances. 2019. Vol. 5, eaay0527.

Enhanced stability of defect-based qubits in quantum wells

V. Ivády, J. Davidsson, A. L. Falk, P. V. Klimov, N. T. Son, D. D. Awschalom, I. A. Abrikosov, A. Gali. Enhanced stability of defect-based qubits in quantum wells. arXiv. 2019. 1905.11801.

Vanadium spin qubits as telecom quantum emitters in silicon carbide

G. Wolfowicz, C. P. Anderson, B. Diler, O. G. Poluektov, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom. Vanadium spin qubits as telecom quantum emitters in silicon carbide. arXiv. 2019. 1908.09817.

Correlating dynamic strain and photoluminescenceof solid-state defects with stroboscopic XRDM

S. J. Whiteley, F. J. Heremans, G. Wolfowicz, D. D. Awschalom, M. V. Holt. Correlating dynamic strain and photoluminescenceof solid-state defects with stroboscopic XRDM. Nat. Commun.. 2019. Vol. 10, Pg. 3386.

Heterodyne detection of radio-frequency electric fields using point defects in silicon carbide

G. Wolfowicz, C. P. Anderson, S. J. Whiteley, D. D. Awschalom. Heterodyne detection of radio-frequency electric fields using point defects in silicon carbide. Appl. Phys. Lett.. 2019. Vol. 115, Pg. 043105.

All-optical cryogenic thermometry based on NV centers in nanodiamonds

M. Fukami, C. G. Yale, P. Andrich, X. Liu, F. J. Heremans, P. F. Nealey, D. D. Awschalom. All-optical cryogenic thermometry based on NV centers in nanodiamonds. Phys. Rev. Applied. 2019. Vol. 12, Pg. 014042.

Simple non-galvanic flip-chip integration method for hybrid quantum systems

K. J. Satzinger, C. R. Conner, A. Bienfait, H.-S. Chang, M.-H. Chou, A. Y., Cleland, E. Dumur, J. Grebel, G. A. Peairs, R. G. Povey, S. J. Whiteley, Y. P. Zhong, D. D. Awschalom, D. I. Schuster, A. N. Cleland. Simple non-galvanic flip-chip integration method for hybrid quantum systems. Appl. Phys. Lett.. 2019. Vol. 114, Pg. 173501.

View All Publications
Name Institution
Paul Alivisatos University of California, Berkeley
Dimitri Basov University of California, San Diego
Guido Burkard University of Konstanz
Andrew Cleland University of Chicago
David DiVincenzo RWTH Aachen
Viatcheslav Dobrovitski Ames Laboratory and Iowa State University
Philip Feng Case Western Reserve University
Michael Flatté University of Iowa
Adam Gali Budapest University of Technology and Economics
Ronald Hanson TU Delft
Evelyn Hu Harvard University
Ania Bleszynski Jayich University of California, Santa Barbara
H. Jeff Kimble California Institute of Technology
Jeremy Levy University of Pittsburgh
Daniel Loss University of Basel
Roberto Myers The Ohio State University
Hideo Ohno Tohoku University
Joe Orenstein University of California, Berkeley
Oskar Painter California Institute of Technology
Chris Palmstrøm University of California, Santa Barbara
Dan Rugar IBM Almaden Research Center
Nitin Samarth Pennsylvania State University
Thomas Schenkel Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Darrell Schlom Cornell University
David Schuster University of Chicago
Chris van de Walle University of California, Santa Barbara
Stephan von Molnar Florida State University
Ali Yazdani Princeton University
  • Benjamín Alemán
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Oregon
  • Paolo Andrich
    Graduate Student Alumni Department of Physics, University of Cambridge
  • Lee Bassett
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania
  • Jeremy Baumberg
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Hitachi Cambridge Research Center
  • Jesse Berezovsky
    Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, Case Western Reserve University
  • Bernd Beschoten
    Postdoctoral Alumni; RWTH Aachen, Germany
  • Joerg Bochmann
    Postdoctoral Alumni; TRUMPF Lasertechnik
  • Hope Bretscher
    Undergraduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Cambridge
  • Bob Buckley
    Graduate Student Alumni Freedom Photonics, Santa Barbara, California
  • Greg Calusine
    Graduate Student Alumni MIT Lincoln Laboratory
  • 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
  • Scott Crooker
    Graduate Student Alumni; Los Alamos National Laboratory / NHMFL
  • Paul Crowell
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Minnesota
  • Charles de las Casas
    Graduate Student Alumni Integra Credit
  • Ryan Epstein
    Graduate Student Alumni; Northrop Grumman Corporation
  • Abram Falk
    Postdoctoral Alumni; IBM Watson Research Center
  • Mark Field
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Symyx Corporation
  • Mark R. Freeman
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Alberta
  • Dan Fuchs
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Lucent Laboratories
  • Greg Fuchs
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University
  • Sai Ghosh
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, UC Merced
  • Savas Gider
    Graduate Student Alumni; Apple Inc.
  • Jay Gupta
    Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, The Ohio State University
  • Oliver Gywat
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Credit Suisse, Zurich
  • Ronald Hanson
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, Delft University of Technology
  • Jack Harris
    Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, Yale University
  • Alex Holleitner
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Walter Schottky Institute, TMU
  • Viva Horowitz
    Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, Hamilton College
  • Ezekiel Johnston-Halperin
    Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, The Ohio State University
  • 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 Inc., 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.
  • 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
  • Irina Malajovich
    Graduate Student Alumni; Dupont Research, DE
  • Florian Meier
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Patent law
  • Ines Meinel
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Dupont Displays
  • Felix Mendoza
    Graduate Student Alumni; TILL I.D. GmbH, Munich, Germany
  • 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
  • Vladimir Nikitin
    Graduate Student Alumni; Samsung Semiconductor Inc.
  • Mark Nowakowski
    Graduate Student Alumni; Quantum Computing Research, Northrop Grumman Corporation
  • 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
  • Mark B. Ritter
    Postdoctoral Alumni; IBM Watson Research Center
  • 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
  • Joseph Smyth
    Postdoctoral Alumni; IBM Almaden Research Center
  • 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
  • David Steuerman
    Postdoctoral Alumni; CNA Corporation
  • Ashish Thapliyal
    Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Computer Science, UC Berkeley
  • David Toyli
    Graduate Student Alumni IBM Watson Research Center
  • David Tulchinsky
    Graduate Student Alumni; Naval Research Laboratory
  • Joost van Bree
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Advanced Semiconductor Materials International (ASML)
  • James Warnock
    Postdoctoral Alumni; IBM Watson Research Center
  • Marie Wesson
    Undergraduate Student Alumni; Department of Applied Physics, Harvard University
  • Samuel Whiteley
    Graduate Student Alumni; HRL Laboratories, LLC
  • Xu Xiao
    Undergraduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, Yale University
  • Christopher Yale
    Graduate Student Alumni Sandia National Laboratory
  • Andrew Yeats
    Graduate Student Alumni Naval Research Laboratory
  • Darron Young
    Graduate Student Alumni; Intel Corporation
  • Brian Zhou
    Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, Boston College

Spintronics

Spintronics, the storage and transport of electronic spins in semiconductor devices may revolutionize the electronic device industry, with spin based transistors, memories, and opto-electronic devices replacing their charge-based counterparts. For instance, giant and tunnel magnetoresistance effects are already used in modern hard drives, and non-volatile spin-logic devices are being studied for inclusion in future computers. Ultimately, spintronics could bring practical logic and memory down to the single electron spin level.

Magnetic Semiconductors

The exchange couplings present in magnetically-doped semiconductors are orders of magnitude larger in energy than the spin-orbit and hyperfine interactions, and the interactions between carriers and magnetic ions in magnetic semiconductors may be engineered through heterostructures grown with molecular beam epitaxy.

Measurement Techniques

Spin phenomena may be quantified to a striking degree of precision using a variety of optical and electronic techniques that enable one to probe spin dynamics as a function of time and space.

Chicago Quantum Exchange, 2019

Tommy La Stella visits the lab, 2018

Revolution Brewing, 2016

The past and present melt together, Himeji Castle, 2016

Complete photo gallery