Awschalom Group

Spin Dynamics and Quantum Information Processing in Semiconductors and Molecules

Our group is primarily concerned with understanding electron and nuclear spin dynamics in semiconductors and molecules as well as engineering quantum states for information processing and sensing applications. Our experimental program combines quantum optics with electron-spin resonance, materials engineering, and nanofabrication. We are focused on developing experimental tools and uncovering new systems that could expand the technological impact of quantum coherence in emerging material systems. Certain point defects in semiconductors, such as the nitrogen vacancy center in diamond or the neutral divacancy in silicon carbide, exhibit long-lived spin coherence that persist up to room temperature. The ability to design individual quantum states and their hosts with the power of chemical synthesis offers new opportunities for the field, spanning quantum sensing, communication, and computing. Harnessing these spin states as atomic-scale probes of electromagnetic fields promises to lead to nanoscale nuclear magnetic resonance, new tools for bio-sensing, and a better understanding of semiconductor electronics.

To read more about our studies, explore the links below:

Quantum Information Processing in Diamond

The fundamental quantum-mechanical nature of spin makes it an ideal candidate for use as a quantum bit, the basic unit of information in a quantum computing architecture. Individual spins may be initialized, coherently controlled, and read out using a variety of optical and electronic techniques. In particular, point defects in crystals have many analogous properties to atoms trapped in vacuum, including localized electronic states and sharp optical and spin transitions. In certain defects, electronic spin states are insulated from lattice dynamics, leading to long quantum coherence times that persist even up to room temperature.

Spin Control in Silicon Carbide and Other Materials

We are exploring defects in a variety of wide-bandgap materials, such as the divacancy in silicon carbide (SiC). We investigate these defects for both fundamental and applied studies of quantum information processing as well as for developing hybrid quantum systems and nanoscale sensing.

Image courtesy of Daniel Laorenza, Freedman Group (MIT)

Creating and Controlling Molecular Spin Qubits

In addition to having coherence times of up to 10 μs and a spin-photon interface, optically addressable molecular spin qubits have the potential to be tunable, modular and scalable. We leverage chemical synthesis methods for bottom-up design of these molecular qubits. We have demonstrated optical addressability of the spin-1 ground-state of a chromium (IV) molecular complex, shown enhancement of the coherence of the chromium spin qubit through host matrix engineering, and shown the tunability of the spin properties of this class of molecules through ligand field modification. We continue to explore structure-function relationships of novel molecular qubits with potential applications in quantum sensing, communication, and computing.

• Angela Abongwa
  Undergraduate Student
• Jonghoon Ahn
  Postdoctoral scholar, Argonne National Laboratory
• Corrie Barnes
  Undergraduate Student
• Nolan Bitner
  Graduate Student (co-advised by F. Joseph Heremans)
• Joseph Blanton
  Graduate Student
• Will Burke
  Graduate Student
• Swathi Chandrika
  Graduate Student
• Sanskriti Chitransh
  Graduate Student
• Nazar Delegan
  Assistant Staff Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory
• Chris Egerstrom
  Graduate Student (co-advised by F. Joseph Heremans)
• Jacob Feder
  Graduate Student (co-advised by Peter Maurer)
• F. Joseph Heremans
  Staff Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory; UChicago CASE scientist
• Bethel Kifle
  Undergraduate Student
• Sagar Kumar Seth
  Graduate Student (co-advised by Supratik Guha)
• Jonathan Marcks
  Postdoctoral scholar, Argonne National Laboratory
• Marquis McMillan
  Graduate Student

• Noah Mendelson
  CQE/IBM Postdoctoral Fellow
• José A. Méndez
  Graduate Student (co-advised by Hannes Bernien)
• Benjamin Pingault
  Assistant Staff Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory
• Charlotte Quintanar
  Undergraduate Student
• Grant Smith
  Graduate Student
• Michael Solomon
  Graduate Student
• Benjamin Soloway
  Graduate Student
• Yeghishe Tsaturyan
  Postdoctoral Scholar
• Chris Wang
  Grainger Postdoctoral Fellow
• Chloe Washabaugh
  Graduate Student
• Leah Weiss
  Postdoctoral Scholar
• Christina Wicker
  Graduate Student
• Cyrus Zeledon
  Graduate Student (co-advised by F. Joseph Heremans)
• Jiefei Zhang
  Assistant Staff Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory
• Yizhi Zhu
  Graduate Student (co-advised by Giulia Galli)

• Benjamín Alemán
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Oregon
• Chris Anderson
  Postdoctoral and Graduate Student Alumnus; Department of Materials Science & Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• Paolo Andrich
  Graduate Student Alumni; HAL24K
• Lee Bassett
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania
• Jeremy Baumberg
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Hitachi Cambridge Research Center
• Sam Bayliss
  Postdoctoral alumnus; Electronics and Nanoscale Division of the James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow
• Jesse Berezovsky
  Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, Case Western Reserve University
• Bernd Beschoten
  Postdoctoral Alumni; RWTH Aachen, Germany
• Joerg Bochmann
  Postdoctoral Alumni; TRUMPF Lasertechnik
• Alexandre Bourassa
  Graduate Student Alumnus; Google, Santa Barbara, CA
• Hope Bretscher
  Undergraduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Cambridge
• Bob Buckley
  Graduate Student Alumni Freedom Photonics, Santa Barbara, California
• Greg Calusine
  Graduate Student Alumni MIT Lincoln Laboratory
• Darius Choksy
  Undergraduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, UC San Diego
• David Christle
  Graduate Student Alumni LinkedIn Corporation, Mountain View, California
• Agnetta Cleland
  Undergraduate Student Alumni; Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University
• Alex Crook
  Graduate Student Alumnus; Google, Santa Barbara, CA
• Scott Crooker
  Graduate Student Alumni; Los Alamos National Laboratory / NHMFL
• Paul Crowell
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Minnesota
• Charles de las Casas
  Graduate Student Alumni Integra Credit
• Pratiti Deb
  Graduate Student Alumnus; Department of Physics, Yale University
• Ryan Epstein
  Graduate Student Alumni; Northrop Grumman Corporation
• Abram Falk
  Postdoctoral Alumni; IBM Watson Research Center
• Mark Field
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Symyx Corporation
• Mark R. Freeman
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Alberta
• Dan Fuchs
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Lucent Laboratories
• Greg Fuchs
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Applied and Engineering Physics, Cornell University
• Masaya Fukami
  Postdoctoral and Graduate Student Alumnus; PsiQuantum, Palo Alto, CA
• Sai Ghosh
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, UC Merced
• Savas Gider
  Graduate Student Alumni; Apple Inc.
• Elena Glen
  Graduate Student Alumnus; EeroQ Quantum Hardware
• Jay Gupta
  Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, The Ohio State University
• Oliver Gywat
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Credit Suisse, Zurich
• Michael Haas
  Undergraduate Student Alumni; Department of Applied Physics, Harvard University
• Ronald Hanson
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, Delft University of Technology
• Jack Harris
  Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, Yale University
• Alex Holleitner
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Walter Schottky Institute, TMU
• Viva Horowitz
  Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, Hamilton College
• Paul Jerger
  Graduate Student Alumnus; Materials & Microsystems Laboratory, HRL Laboratories
• Ezekiel Johnston-Halperin
  Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, The Ohio State University
• Yuichiro Kato
  Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Applied Physics, University of Tokyo
• Roland Kawakami
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, The Ohio State University
• Jay Kikkawa
  Graduate Student Alumni; Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Pennsylvania
• Paul Klimov
  Graduate Student Alumni; Google, Santa Barbara, California
• Rob Knobel
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, Queen's University
• Hadrian Knotz
  Graduate Student Alumni; Senior Systems Architect, Solver, Inc.
• William Koehl
  Graduate Student Alumni; Quantum Computing Research, Northrop Grumman Corporation
• Berk Diler Kovos
  Postdoctoral and Graduate Student Alumnus; Quantum Machines

• Wayne Lau
  Postdoctoral Alumni; EPIR Technologies Inc.
• Hope Lee
  Undergraduate Student Alumni; Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University
• Seung Hwan Lee
  Undergraduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, Harvard University
• Jeremy Levy
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Pittsburgh
• Yongqing Li
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Max Planck Institute, Stuttgart
• Shawn Mack
  Graduate Student Alumni; Naval Research Laboratory
• Brian Maertz
  Graduate Student Alumni; Freedom Photonics, Santa Barbara, California
• Irina Malajovich
  Graduate Student Alumni; Dupont Research, DE
• Florian Meier
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Patent law
• Ines Meinel
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Dupont Displays
• Felix Mendoza
  Graduate Student Alumni; TILL I.D. GmbH, Munich, Germany
• Kevin Miao
  Graduate Student Alumni; Google, Santa Barbara, CA
• Maiken Mikkelsen
  Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Duke University
• Peter Mintun
  Graduate Student Alumnus; Arch Ventures
• Roberto Myers
  Graduate Student Alumni; Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Materials Science and Engineering, The Ohio State University
• Vladimir Nikitin
  Graduate Student Alumni; Samsung Semiconductor Inc.
• Mark Nowakowski
  Graduate Student Alumni; Boeing Research and Technology, California
• Kenichi Ohno
  Graduate Student Alumni; Applied Materials, Santa Clara, California
• Min Ouyang
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Maryland
• Ananya Pillutla
  Undergraduate Student Alumni; Marshall, Gerstein & Borun, Chicago, Illinois
• Martino Poggio
  Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Basel
• Alberto Politi
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Southampton
• Mouktik Raha
  Postdoctoral Alumnus; AWS Center for Quantum Networking
• Mark B. Ritter
  Postdoctoral Alumni; IBM Watson Research Center
• Gian Salis
  Postdoctoral Alumni; IBM Zurich Research Laboratory
• Jing Shi
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, UC Riverside
• Vanessa Sih
  Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Michigan
• Joseph Smyth
  Postdoctoral Alumni; IBM Almaden Research Center
• Geoff Steeves
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, University of Victoria
• Jason Stephens
  Graduate Student Alumni; Postdoctoral Alumni; Thinsilicon Corporation
• Nate Stern
  Graduate Student Alumni Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University
• David Steuerman
  Postdoctoral Alumni; CNA Corporation
• Sean Sullivan
  Argonne-Affiliated Postdoctoral Alumnus; memQ Inc.
• Ashish Thapliyal
  Graduate Student Alumni; Department of Computer Science, UC Berkeley
• David Toyli
  Graduate Student Alumni IBM Watson Research Center
• David Tulchinsky
  Graduate Student Alumni; Naval Research Laboratory
• Joost van Bree
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Advanced Semiconductor Materials International (ASML)
• Erzsebet Vincent
  Graduate Student Alumna
• James Warnock
  Postdoctoral Alumni; IBM Watson Research Center
• Maya Watts
  GEM Fellow Alumni; Department of Physics, Northwestern University
• Marie Wesson
  Undergraduate Student Alumni; Department of Applied Physics, Harvard University
• Samuel Whiteley
  Graduate Student Alumni; HRL Laboratories, LLC
• Gary Wolfowicz
  Postdoctoral and Assistant Staff Scientist Alumnus; Photonic Inc
• Xu Xiao
  Undergraduate Student Alumni; Department of Physics, Yale University
• Christopher Yale
  Graduate Student Alumni Sandia National Laboratory
• Andrew Yeats
  Graduate Student Alumni Naval Research Laboratory
• Darron Young
  Graduate Student Alumni; Intel Corporation
• Brian Zhou
  Postdoctoral Alumni; Department of Physics, Boston College