Design of defect spins in piezoelectric aluminum nitride for solid-state hybrid quantum technologies
Spin defects in wide-band gap semiconductors are promising systems for the realization of quantum bits, or qubits, in solid-state environments. To date, defect qubits have only been realized in materials with strong covalent bonds. Here, we introduce a strain-driven scheme to rationally design defect spins in functional ionic crystals, which may operate as potential qubits. In particular, using a combination of state-of-the-art ab-initio calculations based on hybrid density functional and many-body perturbation theory, we predicted that the negatively charged nitrogen vacancy center in piezoelectric aluminum nitride exhibits spin-triplet ground states under realistic uni- and bi-axial strain conditions; such states may be harnessed for the realization of qubits. As a result, the strain-driven strategy adopted here can be readily extended to a wide range of point defects in other wide-band gap semiconductors, paving the way to controlling the spin properties of defects in ionic systems for potential spintronic technologies.
- Authors:
-
[1]
; [2]
; [2]
- Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States)
- Univ. of Chicago, Chicago, IL (United States); Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Grant/Contract Number:
- AC02-06CH11357
- Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Scientific Reports
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 6; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2045-2322
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Research Org:
- Argonne National Lab. (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States)
- Sponsoring Org:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Basic Energy Sciences (BES) (SC-22)
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS; electronic structure; Marco Govoni & Giulia Galli
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1239598
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript (DOE)
- Publisher's Version of Record
- https://doi.org/10.1038/srep20803