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Sound-driven single-electron transfer in a circuit of coupled quantum rails.

Shintaro TakadaHermann EdlbauerHugo V LepageJunliang WangPierre-André MortemousqueGiorgos GeorgiouCrispin H W BarnesChristopher J B FordMingyun YuanPaulo V SantosXavier WaintalArne LudwigAndreas Dirk WieckMatias UrdampilletaTristan MeunierChristopher Bäuerle
Published in: Nature communications (2019)
Surface acoustic waves (SAWs) strongly modulate the shallow electric potential in piezoelectric materials. In semiconductor heterostructures such as GaAs/AlGaAs, SAWs can thus be employed to transfer individual electrons between distant quantum dots. This transfer mechanism makes SAW technologies a promising candidate to convey quantum information through a circuit of quantum logic gates. Here we present two essential building blocks of such a SAW-driven quantum circuit. First, we implement a directional coupler allowing to partition a flying electron arbitrarily into two paths of transportation. Second, we demonstrate a triggered single-electron source enabling synchronisation of the SAW-driven sending process. Exceeding a single-shot transfer efficiency of 99%, we show that a SAW-driven integrated circuit is feasible with single electrons on a large scale. Our results pave the way to perform quantum logic operations with flying electron qubits.
Keyphrases
  • electron transfer
  • molecular dynamics
  • energy transfer
  • quantum dots
  • monte carlo
  • lymph node
  • solar cells
  • risk assessment
  • human health
  • climate change
  • ionic liquid