Genetic design of enhanced valley splitting towards a spin qubit in silicon

Lijun Zhang (), Jun-Wei Luo, Andre Saraiva, Belita Koiller and Alex Zunger
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Lijun Zhang: University of Colorado, Boulder
Jun-Wei Luo: National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Andre Saraiva: Instituto de Fisica, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Belita Koiller: Instituto de Fisica, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
Alex Zunger: University of Colorado, Boulder

Nature Communications, 2013, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract The long spin coherence time and microelectronics compatibility of Si makes it an attractive material for realizing solid-state qubits. Unfortunately, the orbital (valley) degeneracy of the conduction band of bulk Si makes it difficult to isolate individual two-level spin-1/2 states, limiting their development. This degeneracy is lifted within Si quantum wells clad between Ge-Si alloy barrier layers, but the magnitude of the valley splittings achieved so far is small—of the order of 1 meV or less—degrading the fidelity of information stored within such a qubit. Here we combine an atomistic pseudopotential theory with a genetic search algorithm to optimize the structure of layered-Ge/Si-clad Si quantum wells to improve this splitting. We identify an optimal sequence of multiple Ge/Si barrier layers that more effectively isolates the electron ground state of a Si quantum well and increases the valley splitting by an order of magnitude, to ∼9 meV.

Date: 2013
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms3396

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