Science Daily May 22, 2018
The uncontrolled interaction of a quantum system with its environment is detrimental for quantum coherence. An international team of researchers (USA – Harvard University, Sandia National Laboratory, UK) used a nano-electro-mechanical system to mitigate the effect of thermal phonons on a spin qubit, the silicon vacancy color center, without changing the system temperature. By controlling the strain environment of the colour centre, they tuned its electronic levels to probe, control, and eventually suppress the interaction of its spin with the thermal bath. Strain control provided both large tunability of the optical transitions and significantly improved spin coherence. The findings can lead to the realisation of phonon-mediated quantum gates and nonlinear quantum phononics… read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLE