Abstract
The following article is based on the Symposium X presentation given by Bruce E. Kane (University of Maryland) at the 2004 Materials Research Society Spring Meeting in San Francisco. Quantum computing has the potential to revolutionize our ability to solve certain classes of difficult problems. A quantum computer is able to manipulate individual two-level quantum states (“qubits”) in the same way that a conventional computer processes binary ones and zeroes. Here, Kane discusses some of the most promising proposals for quantum computing, in which the qubit is associated with single-electron spins in semiconductors. While current research is focused on devices at the one- and two-qubit level, there is hope that cross-fertilization with advancing conventional computer technology will enable the eventual development of a large-scale (thousands of qubits) semiconductor quantum computer.The author focuses on materials issues that will need to be surmounted if large-scale quantum computing is to be realizable. He argues in particular that inherent fluctuations in doped semiconductors will severely limit scaling and that scalable quantum computing in semiconductors may only be possible at the end of the road of Moore’s law scaling, when devices are engineered and fabricated at the atomic level.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
For an introduction to the topic, see M.A. Nielson and I.L. Chuang, Quantum Computation and Quantum Information (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK, 2000).
P.W. Shor, in Proc. 35th Annu. Symp. on Foundations of Computer Science (IEEE Computer Society Press, Los Alamitos, CA, 1994) p. 124.
P.W. Shor, SIAM J. Comp. 26 (1997) p. 1484.
C. Monroe, D.M. Meekhof, B.E. King, W.M. Itano, and D. Wineland, Phys. Rev. Lett. 75 (1995) p. 4714.
D. Kielpinski, C. Monroe, and D.J. Wineland, Nature 417 (2002) p. 709.
Y. Nakamura, Y.A. Pashkin, and J.S. Tsai, Nature 398 (1999) p. 786.
D. Vion, A. Aassime, A. Cottet, P. Joyez, H. Pothier, C. Urbina, C. Esteve, and M.H. Devoret, Science 296 (2002) p. 886.
J.M. Elzerman, R. Hanson, L.H. Willems van Beveren, B. Witkamp, L.M.K. Vandersypen, and L.P. Kouwenhoven, Nature 430 (2004) p. 431.
X. Li, Y. Wu, D. Steel, D. Gammon, T.H. Stievater, D.S. Katzer, D. Park, C. Piermarocchi, and L.J. Sham, Science 301 (2003) p. 809.
F. Jelezko, T. Gaebel, I. Popa, A. Gruber, and J. Wrachtrup, Phys. Rev. Lett. 92 076401 (2004).
G. Feher and E.A. Gere, Phys. Rev. 114 (1959) p. 1245.
A.M. Tyryshkin, S.A. Lyon, A.V. Astashkin, and A.M. Raitsimring, Phys. Rev. B 68 193207 (2003).
B.E. Kane, Nature 393 (1998) p. 133.
R. Vrijen, E. Yablonovitch, K. Wang, H.W. Jiang, A. Balandin, V. Roychowdhury, T. Mor, and D. DiVincenzo, Phys. Rev. A 62 012306 (2000).
M. Friesen, P. Rugheimer, D.E. Savage, M.G. Lagally, D.W. Van der Weide, R. Joynt, and M.A. Eriksson, Phys. Rev. B 67 121301 (2003).
Even single-qubit operations are unnecessary in certain architectures. See D. Bacon, J. Kempe, D.A. Lidar, and K.B. Whaley, Phys. Rev. Lett. 85 (2000) p. 1758; and D.P. DiVincenzo, D. Bacon, J. Kempe, G. Burkard, and K.B. Whaley, Nature 408 (2000) p. 339.
J. Levy, Phys. Rev. A 64 052306 (2001).
A.M. Stoneham, A.J. Fisher, and P.T. Greenland, J. Phys. Condens. Matter 15 (2003) p. L447.
D. Loss and D.P. DiVincenzo, Phys. Rev. A 57 (1998) p. 120.
G. Burkard, D. Loss, and D.P. DiVincenzo, Phys. Rev. B 59 (1999) p. 2070.
M. Ciorga, A.S. Sachrajda, P. Hawrylak, C. Gould, P. Zawadzki, S. Jullian, Y. Feng, and Z. Wasilewski, Phys. Rev. B 61 R16315 (2000).
J.M. Elzerman, R. Hanson, J.S. Greidanus, L.H. Willems van Beveren, S. De Franceschi, L.M.K. Vandersypen, S. Tarucha, and L.P. Kouwenhoven, Phys. Rev. B 67 161308 (2003).
X. Hu and S. Das Sarma, Phys. Rev. A 61 062301 (2000).
N. Mason, M.J. Biercuk, and C.M. Marcus, Science 303 (2004) p. 655.
L. Oberbeck, N.J. Curson, M.Y. Simmons, R. Brenner, A.R. Hamilton, S.R. Schofield, and R.G. Clark, Appl Phys. Lett. 81 (2002) p. 3197; J.L. O’Brien, S.R. Schofield, M.Y. Simmons, R.G. Clark, A.S. Dzurak, N.J. Curson, B.E. Kane, N.S. McAlpine, M.E. Hawley, and G.W. Brown, Phys. Rev. B 64 161401 (2001).
T. Schenkel, A. Persaud, S.J. Park, J. Nilsson, J. Bokor, J.A. Liddle, R. Keller, D.H. Schneider, D.W. Cheng, and D.E. Humphries, J. Appl. Phys. 94 (2003) p. 7017.
R.W. Keyes, Philos. Mag. B 81 (2001) p. 1315; also R. Keyes, Rev. Mod. Phys. 61 (1989) p. 279.
See A.M. Steane, Nature 399 (1999) p. 124 and references therein.
E. Knill, R. Laflamme, and W.H. Zurek, Science 279 (1998) p. 342.
N. Isailovic, M. Whitney, Y. Patel, J. Kubiatowicz, D. Copsey, F.T. Chong, I.L. Chuang, and M. Oskin, Trans. Architecture Code Optimization 1 (2004) p. 34.
See L. Pfeiffer, K.W. West, H.L. Stormer, and K.W. Baldwin, Appl. Phys. Lett. 55 (1989) p. 1888 and references therein.
J.A. Nixon, J.H. Davies, and H.U. Baranger, Phys. Rev. B 43 (1991) p. 12638.
B.E. Kane, L.N. Pfeiffer, and K.W. West, Appl. Phys. Lett. 67 (1995) p. 1262.
B. Koiller, X. Hu, and S. Das Sarma, Phys. Rev. Lett. 88 027903 (2002).
C.J. Wellard, L.C.L. Hollenberg, F. Parisoli, L.M. Kettle, H.-S. Goan, J.A.L. McIntosh, and D.N. Jamieson, Phys. Rev. B 68 195209 (2003).
B. Koiller, X. Hu, and S. Das Sarma, Phys. Rev. B 66 115201 (2002).
R. de Sousa, J.D. Delgado, and S. Das Sarma, “Silicon quantum computation based on magnetic dipolar coupling,” arXiv.org e-print archive, cond-mat/0311403 (accessed December 2004).
A.J. Skinner, M.E. Davenport, and B.E. Kane, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90 087901 (2003).
J.S. Xia, W. Pan, C.L. Vincente, E.D. Adams, N.S. Sullivan, H.L. Stormer, D.C. Tsui, L.N. Pfeiffer, K.W. Baldwin, and K.W. West, “Electron correlation in the second Landau level; a competition between many, nearly degenerate quantum phases,” arXiv.org e-print archive, cond-mat/0406724 (accessed December 2004).
M.F. Crommie, C.P. Lutz, and D.M. Eigler, Science 262 (1993) p. 218.
A.J. Heinrich, C.P. Lutz, J.A. Gupta, and D.M. Eigler, Science 298 (2002) p. 1381.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kane, B.E. Can We Build a Large-Scale Quantum Computer Using Semiconductor Materials?. MRS Bulletin 30, 105–110 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs2005.29
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1557/mrs2005.29