Isotope engineering of silicon and diamond for quantum computing and sensing applications

TL;DR

This paper reviews how isotope engineering of silicon and diamond, by using nuclear-spin-free isotopes, enhances their suitability as host materials for quantum computing and sensing due to improved coherence properties.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of current techniques and future prospects for isotope engineering in silicon and diamond for quantum technologies.

Findings

Isotope engineering improves qubit coherence times.

Nuclear-spin-free isotopes reduce decoherence in quantum devices.

Advances enable more reliable quantum sensors and processors.

Abstract

Some of the stable isotopes of silicon and carbon have zero nuclear spin, whereas many of the other elements that constitute semiconductors consist entirely of stable isotopes that have nuclear spins. Silicon and diamond crystals composed of nuclear-spin-free stable isotopes (Si-28, Si-30, or C-12) are considered to be ideal host matrixes to place spin quantum bits (qubits) for quntum computing and sensing applications because their coherent properties are not disrupted thanks to the absence of host nuclear spins. The present article describes the state-of-the-art and future perspective of silicon and diamond isotope engineering for development of quantum information processing devices.