Focus Research Group 2

FRG 2 - Quantum Technologies

Focus Research Group 2 will address current limitations impeding quantum technology by exploring solid-state spin qubits for quantum sensing and metrology, and photons for ultrafast, compact, and low-power quantum communication nanophotonic devices.

Researchers

Current
  • Abdelghani Laraoui, UNL MME (group leader)
  • Mohammad Ghashami, UNL MME
  • Ufuk Kilic, UNL ECE
  • Sy-Hwang Liou, UNL Physics
  • Eva Schubert, UNL ECE
  • Mathias Schubert, UNL ECE
  • Jonathan Wrubel, Creighton Physics
Former
  • Christos Argyropoulos
  • Wei Bao

Research Thrust 1:

Quantum Sensing and Metrology

Quantum sensing is the use of qubits to detect environmental parameters. Quantum sensors based on atomic vapor cells are already used commercially in geology and navigation systems. The introduction of new quantum sensors, based on solid-state qubits, opens new applications with significant societal impact, including materials discovery, biosensing, and solid-state device characterization. In particular, the NV center in diamond, a spin-1 defect, is among the leading quantum sensors. It has an optically addressable electron spin with millisecond quantum coherence even at room temperature that enabled the first detection of single protons and proteins. NV centers also enabled sub-micron nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and demonstrate entanglement between distant (>1 km) spin qubits with high (> 90%) fidelity. Thrust 1 will use NV to study spin-magnon interactions in magnonic devices (Laraoui) and perform LF magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and develop THz-EPR-E to investigate new solid-state qubits in UWBG semiconductors with superior properties to NV.

Figure (a) Energy-levels of NV. Figure (b) Schematic of ODMR microscope. Figure (c) A diamond film mounted on a YIG disk. Figure (d) NV ODMR peaks on (off) YIG, at applied fields of 180 G (160 G). Figure (e) Magnon driven Rabi oscillations in NV spins (dip 1 in (d)).
Fig.: (a) Energy-levels of NV. (b) Schematic of ODMR microscope. (c) A diamond film mounted on a YIG disk. (d) NV ODMR peaks on (off) YIG, at applied fields of 180 G (160 G). (e) Magnon driven Rabi oscillations in NV spins (dip 1 in (d)).

Research Thrust 2:

Quantum Communication

Quantum photonics, such as boson sampling and quantum walks using single photon sources, and single-photon detectors have been one of the leading platforms for quantum computation and quantum communication. However, it is difficult to design these nanoscale technologies, because of fundamental physical limitations in the materials used, including the diffraction limit of light and extremely weak light-matter interactions at the nanoscale. Thrust 2 will design new hybrid composite photonic nanostructures made of ultrathin sub-nm dielectric oxide layers along ultrasmooth metals, perovskites, and solid-state emitters in UWBG semiconductors and 2D materials. FRG 2 will utilize unique theoretical, nanofabrication, and experimental photonic expertise to explore the complex behavior of these new structures. Such research promises to overcome current limitations impeding the design of quantum communication technologies by leading to the efficient control and enhancement of photon absorption; spontaneous and stimulated emission rates causing single or multiple photon streams, and other quantum optical, nonlinear, and topological processes.

Enhanced nonlinear (a) and quantum (b) optical effects based on localized gap-plasmon nanostructures. (c) Arrays of GLAD fabricated Au-Si slanted nanocolumns and Ag-Si nanohelices to achieve enhanced chiral response. (d) Nonlinear helical metasurfaces for enhanced circularly-polarized harmonic generation.
Fig.: Enhanced nonlinear (a) and quantum (b) optical effects based on localized gap-plasmon nanostructures. (c) Arrays of GLAD fabricated Au-Si slanted nanocolumns and Ag-Si nanohelices to achieve enhanced chiral response. (d) Nonlinear helical metasurfaces for enhanced circularly-polarized harmonic generation.

FRG-2 Selected Publications

  • Stokey, Megan and Korlacki, Rafał and Hilfiker, Matthew and Knight, Sean and Richter, Steffen and Darakchieva, Vanya and Jinno, Riena and Cho, Yongjin and Xing, Huili Grace and Jena, Debdeep and Oshima, Yuichi and Khan, Kamruzzaman and Ahmadi, Elaheh and Schubert, Mathias (2022). Infrared dielectric functions and Brillouin zone center phonons of  α-Ga2O3 compared to α-Al2O3. Physical Review Materials. 6 (1). doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevMaterials.6.01460
  • Tao, Renjie and Peng, Kai and Haeberlé, Louis and Li, Quanwei and Jin, Dafei and Fleming, Graham R. and Kéna-Cohen, Stéphane and Zhang, Xiang and Bao, Wei. (2022). Halide perovskites enable polaritonic XY spin Hamiltonian at room temperature.  Nature Materials. 21  (7) 761 to 766. doi.org/10.1038/s41563-022-01276-4
  • Hilfiker, Matthew and Kilic, Ufuk and Stokey, Megan and Jinno, Riena and Cho, Yongjin and Xing, Huili Grace and Jena, Debdeep and Korlacki, Rafał and Schubert, Mathias. (2022). Anisotropic dielectric function, direction dependent bandgap energy, band order, and indirect to direct gap crossover in α -(AlxGa1−x)2 O3 (0≤x≤1). Applied Physics Letters. 121 (5) 052101. doi.org/10.1063/5.0087602
  • Krause, Bryson and Mishra, Dhananjay and Chen, Jiyang and Argyropoulos, Christos and Hoang, Thang. (2022). Nonlinear Strong Coupling by Second‐Harmonic Generation Enhancement in Plasmonic Nanopatch Antennas. Advanced Optical Materials. 10 (16) 2200510. doi.org/10.1002/adom.202200510
  • Laraoui, Abdelghani and Ambal, Kapildeb. (2022). Opportunities for nitrogen-vacancy-assisted magnetometry to study magnetism in 2D van der Waals magnets. Applied Physics Letters. 121  (6) 060502. doi.org/10.1063/5.0091931
  • Guo, Tianjing and Argyropoulos, Christos. (2022). Nonreciprocal transmission of electromagnetic waves with nonlinear active plasmonic metasurfaces. Physical Review B. 106  (23). doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevB.106.235418
  • Hussain, Kazi Albab and Chen, Cheng and Haggerty, Ryan and Schubert, Mathias and Li, Yusong. (2022). Fundamental Mechanisms and Factors Associated with Nanoparticle-Assisted Enhanced Oil Recovery.  Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research. 61  (49) 17715 to 17734. doi.org/10.1021/acs.iecr.2c02620
  • Korlacki, R. and Knudtson, J. and Stokey, M. and Hilfiker, M. and Darakchieva, V. and Schubert, M. (2022). Linear strain and stress potential parameters for the three fundamental band to band transitions in β-Ga 2O3. Applied Physics Letters. 120 (4) Article No. 042103. doi.org/10.1063/5.0078157
  • Kimel, Alexey and Zvezdin, Anatoly and Sharma, Sangeeta and Shallcross, Samuel and de Sousa, Nuno and García-Martín, Antonio and Salvan, Georgeta and Hamrle, Jaroslav and Stejskal, Ondřej and McCord, Jeffrey and Tacchi, Silvia and Carlotti, Giovanni and Gambardella, Pietro and Salis, Gian and Münzenberg, Markus and Schultze, Martin and Temnov, Vasily and Bychkov, Igor V and Kotov, Leonid N and Maccaferri, Nicolò and Ignatyeva, Daria and Belotelov, Vladimir and Donnelly, Claire and Rodriguez, Aurelio Hierro and Matsuda, Iwao and Ruchon, Thierry and Fanciulli, Mauro and Sacchi, Maurizio and Du, Chunhui Rita and Wang, Hailong and Armitage, N Peter and Schubert, Mathias and Darakchieva, Vanya and Liu, Bilu and Huang, Ziyang and Ding, Baofu and Berger, Andreas and Vavassori, Paolo. (2022). The 2022 magneto-optics roadmap. Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics. 55 (46) 463003. doi.org/10.1088/1361-6463/ac8da0
  • Urban, F. K. and Barton, D. and Schubert, M. (2023). Numerical ellipsometry: A method for selecting a single β-gallium oxide monoclinic crystal orientation able to determine the complete permittivity tensor. Journal of Vacuum Science & Technology A. 41 (1) 013402. doi.org/10.1116/6.0002235
  • Stokey, Megan and Gramer, Teresa and Korlacki, Rafał and Knight, Sean and Richter, Steffen and Jinno, Riena and Cho, Yongjin and Xing, Huili Grace and Jena, Debdeep and Hilfiker, Matthew and Darakchieva, Vanya and Schubert, Mathias. (2022). Infrared-active phonon modes and static dielectric constants in α-(AlxGa1−x)2O3 (0.18 ≤ x ≤ 0.54) alloys.  Applied Physics Letters. 120 (11) doi.org/10.1063/5.0085958
  • Butler, Andrew and Argyropoulos, Christos. (2022). Mechanically tunable radiative cooling for adaptive thermal control. Applied Thermal Engineering. 211 (C) 118527.  doi.org/10.1016/j.applthermaleng.2022.118527
  • Chen, Hanying and Li, Tianlin and Hao, Yifei and Rajapitamahuni, Anil and Xiao, Zhiyong and Schoeche, Stefan and Schubert, Mathias and Hong, Xia. (2022). Remote surface optical phonon scattering in ferroelectric Ba0.6Sr0.4TiO3 gated graphene. Journal of Applied Physics. 132 (15) Article No. 154301. doi.org/10.1063/5.0106939
  • Peng, Kai and Tao, Renjie and Haeberlé, Louis and Li, Quanwei and Jin, Dafei and Fleming, Graham R. and Kéna-Cohen, Stéphane and Zhang, Xiang and Bao, Wei. (2022). Room-temperature polariton quantum fluids in halide perovskites. Nature Communications. 13 (1). doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-34987-y
  • Schubert, Mathias and Knight, Sean and Richter, Steffen and Kühne, Philipp and Stanishev, Vallery and Ruder, Alexander and Stokey, Megan and Korlacki, Rafał and Irmscher, Klaus and Neugebauer, Petr and Darakchieva, Vanya. (2022). Terahertz electron paramagnetic resonance generalized spectroscopic ellipsometry: The magnetic response of the nitrogen defect in 4H-SiC. Applied Physics Letters. 120  (10) Article No. 102101. doi.org/10.1063/5.0082353
  • Li, Ying and Argyropoulos, Christos. (2021). Multiqubit entanglement and quantum phase gates with epsilon-near-zero plasmonic waveguides. Applied Physics Letters. 119 (21) Article No. 211104. doi.org/10.1063/5.0071797
  • Jin, Boyuan and Mishra, Dhananjay and Argyropoulos, Christos. (2021). Efficient single-photon pair generation by spontaneous parametric down-conversion in nonlinear plasmonic metasurfaces. Nanoscale. doi.org/10.1039/D1NR05379E