Quantum Dots Take the Leap: Spin Qubits Go Trampolining With Germanium

Researchers at QuTech developed somersaulting spin qubits for universal quantum logic. This achievement may enable efficient control of large semiconductor qubit arrays.

Over twenty years after Loss and DiVincenzo’s proposal for quantum computation with quantum dots, QuTech researchers have realized these concepts using germanium to facilitate spin control. This approach simplifies the electronics needed for quantum computing, demonstrating effective control over extended quantum dot arrays.

Quantum Dot Qubits
In 1998, Loss and DiVincenzo published the seminal work ‘quantum computation with quantum dots’. In their original work, hopping of spins was proposed as a basis for qubit logic, but an experimental implementation has remained lacking. After more than 20 years, experiments have caught up with theory. Researchers at QuTech —a collaboration between the TU Delft and TNO— have demonstrated that the original ‘hopping gates’ are indeed possible, with state-of-the-art performance.