Bioinspired molecular qubits and nanoparticle ensembles that could be initialized, manipulated and readout under mild conditions

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new class of molecular qubits and nanoparticle ensembles that can be controlled and read under mild conditions, potentially overcoming limitations of existing quantum systems like short coherence times and extreme operational environments.

Contribution

The authors develop thermally controllable molecular and nanoparticle quantum systems based on J-aggregation, enabling quantum manipulation without ultracold temperatures or high vacuum.

Findings

Supramolecular quantum systems resemble light harvesting complexes.

Enable manipulation of quantum information under mild conditions.

Avoid the need for ultra-cooling and high vacuum environments.

Abstract

Quantum computation and quantum information processing are emerging technologies that have potential to overcome the physical limitation of traditional computation systems. Present quantum systems based on photons, atoms and molecules, however, all face challenges such as short coherence time, requirement of ultralow temperature and/or high vacuum, and lack of scalability. We report a new type of molecular qubits and nanoparticle ensembles based on thermally controllable transformation between J-aggregation and monomeric states of molecular chromophores, using pyrrolopyrrole cyanine tethered with polymeric chains such as polycaprolactones as an example. Such supramolecular quantum systems, resembling some feature of light harvesting complexes in photosynthesis, provide new opportunities for manipulating quantum in-formation under mild conditions, which do not require complicated ultra-cooling and/or high vacuum often involved in present superconducting qubits or Rydberg atoms for quantum computation and information processing.