Technologies based on the manipulation of individual charges, spins, photons, and phonons in superconducting, solid-state, and molecular platforms are key for revolutionary quantum technologies in computation, nanoscale sensing and communication.

This program is aimed at the exploration and development of materials systems to solve major challenges in quantum information science. Our team combines expertise in the fabrication and characterization of single-electron and nuclear spin states in wide bandgap semiconductors, molecules, superconducting quantum circuits and microwave frequency mechanical systems –all operating and manipulated in the quantum regime.

This program is associated with the Center for Molecular Engineering at Argonne National Laboratory, in collaboration with the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago.

Material growth and discovery

Solid-state quantum systems are fundamentally material-based with challenges demanding relentless progress in fundamental material science, characterization capabilities and synthesis. Furthermore, once a functional qubit is prepared, the inherent fragile nature of these quantum states provides stringent restrictions on the ability to interface with them. To answer these challenges, a new class of engineered structures and material systems must be established and designed in the solid state for scalable integration of homogeneous and heterogeneous hybrid quantum systems.

Our group utilizes materials growth, nanofabrication, optical spectroscopy and x-ray scattering techniques to explore the materials science and engineer hybrid integration of quantum systems based on individual electron and nuclear spins, microwave photons, phonons and spin waves.

Quantum telecommunication

Over the past few decades, remarkable advances in photonic and solid-state quantum technologies have enabled the construction of distributed quantum systems at the chip- and laboratory-scale. The expansion of distributed entanglement beyond controlled laboratory settings is a critical step toward realizing real-world solid-state quantum communication.

We aim to address fundamental questions related to generating and controlling distributed quantum entanglement in solid-state quantum materials across a real-world ~200 km Chicago metropolitan optical fiber network. In this project, we study the underlying physics that drives decoherence and loss of information in entangled quantum systems that are separated by large physical distance.