Two-axis quantum control of a fast valley qubit in silicon

Abstract

Quantum dots in silicon are a promising architecture for semiconductor quantum computing due to a high degree of electric control and compatibility with existing silicon fabrication processes. Although electron charge and spin are prominent methods for encoding the qubit state, valley states in silicon can also store quantum information via valley-orbit coupling with protection against charge noise. By observing coherent oscillations between valley states in a Si/SiGe double quantum dot device tuned to the two-electron charge configuration, we measure the valley energy splitting in both quantum dots individually. We further demonstrate two-axis quantum control of the valley qubit using gated pulse sequences with X and Z rotations occurring within a fast operation time of 300 ps. This control is used to completely map out the surface of the Bloch sphere in a single phase-space plot that is subsequently used for state and process tomography.