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Single qubit rotations and two-qubit CNOT operations are crucial ingredients for universal quantum computing. While high fidelity single qubit operations have been achieved using the electron spin degree of freedom, realizing a robust CNOT gate has been a major challenge due to rapid nuclear spin dephasing and charge noise. We demonstrate an efficient resonantly-driven CNOT gate for electron spins in silicon. Our platform achieves single-qubit rotations with fidelities >99%, as verified by randomized benchmarking. Gate control of the exchange coupling allows a quantum CNOT gate to be implemented with resonant driving in ~200 ns. We use the CNOT gate to generate a Bell state with 75% fidelity, limited by quantum state readout. Our quantum dot device architecture opens the door to multi-qubit algorithms in silicon.

One of the key challenges in spectroscopy is inhomogeneous broadening that masks the homogeneous spectral lineshape and the underlying coherent dynamics. A variety of techniques including four-wave mixing and spectral hole-burning are used in optical spectroscopy while in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spin-echo is the most common way to counteract inhomogeneity. However, the high-power pulses used in spin-echo and other sequences often create spurious dynamics obscuring the subtle spin correlations that play a crucial role in quantum information applications. Here we develop NMR techniques that allow the correlation times of the fluctuations in a nuclear spin bath of individual quantum dots to be probed. This is achieved with the use of frequency comb excitation which allows the homogeneous NMR lineshapes to be measured avoiding high-power pulses. We find nuclear spin correlation times exceeding 1 s in self-assembled InGaAs quantum dots - four orders of magnitude longer than in strain-free III-V semiconductors. The observed freezing of the nuclear spin fluctuations opens the way for the design of quantum dot spin qubits with a well-understood, highly stable nuclear spin bath.

We report detailed measurements of the relaxation and dephasing time in a flux-qubit measured by a switching DC SQUID. We studied their dependence on the two important circuit bias parameters: the externally applied magnetic flux and the bias current through the SQUID in two samples. We demonstrate two complementary strategies to protect the qubit from these decoherence sources. One consists in biasing the qubit so that its resonance frequency is stationary with respect to the control parameters ({\it optimal point}) ; the second consists in {\it decoupling} the qubit from current noise by chosing a proper bias current through the SQUID. At the decoupled optimal point, we measured long spin-echo decay times of up to $4 \mu s$., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Letters

We review our recent contributions on shot noise for entangled electrons and spin-polarized currents in novel mesoscopic geometries. We first discuss some of our recent proposals for electron entanglers involving a superconductor coupled to a double dot in the Coulomb blockade regime, a superconductor tunnel-coupled to Luttinger-liquid leads, and a triple-dot setup coupled to Fermi leads. We calculate current and shot noise for spin-polarized currents and entangled/unentangled electron pairs in a beam-splitter geometry with a \textit{local} Rashba spin-orbit (s-o) interaction in the incoming leads. We find \textit{continuous} bunching and antibunching behaviors for the \textit{entangled} pairs -- triplet and singlet -- as a function of the Rashba rotation angle. In addition, we find that unentangled triplets and the entangled one exhibit distinct shot noise. Shot noise for spin-polarized currents shows sizable oscillations as a function of the Rashba phase. This happens only for electrons injected perpendicular to the Rashba rotation axis; spin-polarized carriers along the Rashba axis are noiseless. We find an additional spin rotation for electrons with energies near the crossing of the bands where s-o induced interband coupling is relevant. This gives rise to an additional modulation of the noise for both electron pairs and spin-polarized currents. Finally, we briefly discuss shot noise for a double dot near the Kondo regime., Comment: 35 Kluwer pages, 12 figures - to appear in an upcoming NATO SERIES volume on noise

In this chapter we explore the connection between mesoscopic physics and quantum computing. After giving a bibliography providing a general introduction to the subject of quantum information processing, we review the various approaches that are being considered for the experimental implementation of quantum computing and quantum communication in atomic physics, quantum optics, nuclear magnetic resonance, superconductivity, and, especially, normal-electron solid state physics. We discuss five criteria for the realization of a quantum computer and consider the implications that these criteria have for quantum computation using the spin states of single-electron quantum dots. Finally, we consider the transport of quantum information via the motion of individual electrons in mesoscopic structures; specific transport and noise measurements in coupled quantum dot geometries for detecting and characterizing electron-state entanglement are analyzed., Comment: 28 pages RevTeX, 4 figures. To be published in "Quantum Mesoscopic Phenomena and Mesoscopic Devices in Microelectronics," eds. I. O. Kulik and R. Ellialtioglu (NATO Advanced Study Institute, Turkey, June 13-25, 1999)

Three different implementations of interaction-free measurements (IFMs) in solid-state nanodevices are discussed. The first one is based on a series of concatenated Mach-Zehnder interferometers, in analogy to optical-IFM setups. The second one consists of a single interferometer and concatenation is achieved in the time domain making use of a quantized electron emitter. The third implementation consists of an asymmetric Aharonov-Bohm ring. For all three cases we show that the presence of a dephasing source acting on one arm of the interferometer can be detected without degrading the coherence of the measured current. Electronic implementations of IFMs in nanoelectronics may play a fundamental role as very accurate and noninvasive measuring schemes for quantum devices., Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures