Electrically tunable spin qubits in strain-engineered graphene p-n junctions

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how strain engineering and tunable spin-orbit coupling in graphene p-n junctions enable coherent spin manipulation, advancing the development of scalable spin-based quantum devices.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach combining strain-induced quantum confinement with tunable SOC for spin-qubit operation in pristine graphene.

Findings

Strain-induced nanobubbles create double quantum dots with gate-tunable levels.

Two types of avoided crossings enable different spin manipulation regimes.

Time-domain simulations show detuning-dependent Rabi oscillations.

Abstract

Strain engineering enables quantum confinement in pristine graphene without degrading its intrinsic mobility and spin coherence. Here, we extend previously proposed strain-induced charge-qubit architectures by incorporating spin degrees of freedom through Rashba spin-orbit coupling (RSOC) and Zeeman fields, enabling spin-qubit operation in single-layer graphene (SLG). In a graphene p-n junction, a strain-induced nanobubble generates a pseudo-magnetic field that forms double quantum dots with gate-tunable level hybridization. Tight-binding quantum transport simulations and a four-band model reveal two distinct avoided crossings: spin-conserving gaps at zero detuning and spin-flip gaps at finite detuning, the latter increasing with SOC strength while the former decreases. Time-domain simulations confirm detuning-dependent Rabi oscillations corresponding to these two operational regimes. These results demonstrate that strain-induced confinement combined with tunable SOC provides a viable mechanism for coherent spin manipulation in pristine graphene, positioning strained SLG as a promising platform for scalable spin-based quantum technologies.