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EUGENE, OR – APRIL 11, 2019 – By drilling holes in a thin two – dimensional sheet of hexagonal boron nitride with a gallium ion beam, scientists at the University of Oregon have created artificial atoms generating single photons.
Artificial atoms – which work in the air and at room temperature – could be a big step forward in the development efforts of all-optical quantum computing, the physicist said. , Benjamín J. Alemán, principal investigator of a study published in the newspaper Nano Letters.
"Our work provides a source of unique photons that can serve as carriers of quantum information or qubits, we have structured these sources, creating as much as we want, where we want," said Alemán, a member of the material science from UO. Institute and Center of Optical, Molecular and Quantum Science. "We would like to model these unique photon emitters into circuits or networks on a microchip so that they can communicate with each other or with other existing qubits, such as semiconductor spins or circuit qubits. superconductors. "
Artificial atoms were discovered three years ago in 2D hexagonal boron nitride flakes, a single insulating layer composed of alternating boron and nitrogen atoms in a network also called white graphene. Alemán is one of many researchers who use this discovery to produce and use photons as single photon sources and qubits in quantum photonics circuits.
Traditional approaches to the use of atoms in quantum research have focused on the capture of atoms or ions, and the manipulation of their spin with lasers so that they have a quantum superposition or the ability to combine simultaneously states "off" and "on". But this work required working under vacuum in extremely cold weather with sophisticated equipment.
Motivated by the observation that one often finds artificial atoms close to one edge, the German team, backed by the National Science Foundation, first of all created edges in white graphene by drilling circles 500 nanometers wide and four nanometers deep.
The devices were then annealed under oxygen at 850 degrees Celsius (1.562 degrees Fahrenheit) to remove carbon and other residual materials and activate the emitters. Confocal microscopy revealed tiny spots of light from the drilled regions. Zooming in, the Alemán team found that the individual light spots emitted light at the lowest possible level – one photon at a time.
Individual photons could possibly be used as tiny ultra-sensitive thermometers, in quantum key distribution, or for transferring, storing and processing quantum information, Aleman said.
"The big breakthrough is that we have discovered a simple and scalable way to nanofabricate artificial atoms on a microchip, and that artificial atoms are acting in the air and at room temperature," said Alemán. "Our artificial atoms will enable many new and powerful technologies, and in the future they could be used for totally safer and more private communications, as well as for much more powerful computers that could design life-saving drugs and help scientists to better understand the universe through quantum computing ".
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The co-authors on paper were Joshua Ziegler, Rachel Klaiss, Andrew Blaikie and David Miller, PhD students at UO, and Viva R. Horowitz, a physics professor at Hamilton College in New York, who spent the summer of 2018 in the laboratory of Alemán as a visiting professor.
The research was conducted in the Alemán laboratory, Oregon's Advanced Materials Characterization Center (CAMCOR), and the rapid prototyping facility for materials in Oregon. The latter, located at CAMCOR, was created in 2016 with a price from the J. Murdock Charitable Trust.
Source: Benjamin Alemán, Assistant Professor, Department of Physics and Materials Science, 541-346-3321, bAlemá[email protected].
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Connections:
Paper: https: /
About Ben Alemán: https: /
Alemán Laboratory: https: //Alemánlab.uoregon.edu/
Department of Physics: https: /
Institute of Materials Science: https: /
Oregon Advanced Materials Characterization Center: http: // camcor.
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