arXiv subjects

Andrew J. Fisher

Publications and source records attributed to Andrew J. Fisher.

17 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Modelling the Impact of Device Imperfections on Electron Shuttling in SiMOS devices

Extensive theoretical and experimental work has established high-fidelity electron shuttling in Si/SiGe systems, whereas demonstrations in Si/SiO2 (SiMOS) remain at an early stage. To help address this, we perform full 3D simulations of conveyor-belt charge shuttling in a realistic SiMOS device, building on earlier 2D modelling. We solve the Poisson and time-dependent Schrodinger equations for varying shuttling speeds and gate voltages, focusing on potential pitfalls of typical SiMOS devices such as oxide-interface roughness, gate fabrication imperfections, and charge defects along the transport path. The simulations reveal that for low clavier-gate voltages, the additional oxide screening in multi-layer gate architectures causes conveyor-belt shuttling to collapse to the bucket-brigade mode, inducing considerable orbital excitation in the process. Increasing the confinement restores conveyor-belt operation, which we find to be robust against interface roughness, gate misalignment, and charge defects buried in the oxide. However, our results indicate that defects located at the Si/SiO2-interface can induce considerable orbital excitation. For lower conveyor gate biases, positive defects in the transport channel can even capture passing electrons. Hence we identify key challenges and find operating regimes for reliable charge transport in SiMOS architectures.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Effective 2D Envelope Function Theory for Silicon Quantum Dots

We present a rigorous method to reduce the three-dimensional (3D) description of a quantum dot in silicon to an effective two-dimensional (2D) envelope function theory for electron spin qubits. By systematically integrating out the strongly confined vertical dimension using a Born-Oppenheimer-inspired ansatz at the envelope-function level, we derive an effective in-plane potential that faithfully captures the essential electrostatics of the full 3D system. Considering the lowest two eigenstates of the out-of-plane direction, this reduction leads to the natural and explicit emergence of the valley degree of freedom within a 2D formalism, which is derived here from first principles. We validate the accuracy of the method through comparisons with full 3D simulations and demonstrate its superiority over naive 2D slicing, particularly in the presence of interface roughness. Crucially, the reduction in dimensionality leads to substantial computational savings, making our approach particularly well suited for simulating two-electron systems, e.g., for the extraction of parameters such as the exchange coupling. Beyond its practical utility, the rigorous 2D envelope function theory that is introduced in this study incorporates valley physics in a physically grounded manner, offering conceptual clarity on the role of valley states in qubit operation and measurement.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Robustness of electron charge shuttling: Architectures, pulses, charge defects and noise thresholds

In semiconductor-based quantum technologies, the capability to shuttle charges between components is profoundly enabling. We numerically simulated various "conveyor-belt" shuttling scenarios for simple Si/SiO2 devices, explicitly modelling the electron's wave function using grid-based split-operator methods and a time-dependent 2D potential (obtained from a Poisson solver). This allowed us to fully characterise the electron loss probability and excitation fraction. Remarkably, with as few as three independent electrodes the process can remain near-perfectly adiabatic even in the presence of pulse imperfection, nearby charge defects, and Johnson-Nyquist noise. Only a substantial density of charge defects, or defects at 'adversarial' locations, can catastrophically disrupt the charge shuttling. While we do not explicitly model the spin or valley degrees of freedom, our results from this charge propagation study support the conclusion that conveyor-belt shuttling is an excellent candidate for providing connectivity in semiconductor quantum devices.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Roadmap on Atomic-scale Semiconductor Devices

Spin states in semiconductors provide exceptionally stable and noise-resistant environments for qubits, positioning them as optimal candidates for reliable quantum computing technologies. The proposal to use nuclear and electronic spins of donor atoms in silicon, introduced by Kane in 1998, sparked a new research field focused on the precise positioning of individual impurity atoms for quantum devices, utilising scanning tunnelling microscopy and ion implantation. This roadmap article reviews the advancements in the 25 years since Kane's proposal, the current challenges, and the future directions in atomic-scale semiconductor device fabrication and measurement. It covers the quest to create a silicon-based quantum computer and expands to include diverse material systems and fabrication techniques, highlighting the potential for a broad range of semiconductor quantum technological applications. Key developments include phosphorus in silicon devices such as single-atom transistors, arrayed few-donor devices, one- and two-qubit gates, three-dimensional architectures, and the development of a toolbox for future quantum integrated circuits. The roadmap also explores new impurity species like arsenic and antimony for enhanced scalability and higher-dimensional spin systems, new chemistry for dopant precursors and lithographic resists, and the potential for germanium-based devices. Emerging methods, such as photon-based lithography and electron beam manipulation, are discussed for their disruptive potential. This roadmap charts the path toward scalable quantum computing and advanced semiconductor quantum technologies, emphasising the critical intersections of experiment, technological development, and theory.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Momentum-space imaging of ultra-thin electron liquids in delta-doped silicon

Two-dimensional dopant layers ($δ$-layers) in semiconductors provide the high-mobility electron liquids (2DELs) needed for nanoscale quantum-electronic devices. Key parameters such as carrier densities, effective masses, and confinement thicknesses for 2DELs have traditionally been extracted from quantum magnetotransport. In principle, the parameters are immediately readable from the one-electron spectral function that can be measured by angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). Here, buried 2DEL $δ$-layers in silicon are measured with soft X-ray (SX) ARPES to obtain detailed information about their filled conduction bands and extract device-relevant properties. This study takes advantage of the larger probing depth and photon energy range of SX-ARPES relative to vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) ARPES to accurately measure the $δ$-layer electronic confinement. The measurements are made on ambient-exposed samples and yield extremely thin ($\approx 1$ $nm$) and dense ($\approx$ $10^{14}$ $cm^2$) 2DELs. Critically, this method is used to show that $δ$-layers of arsenic exhibit better electronic confinement than $δ$-layers of phosphorus fabricated under identical conditions.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2021

Multi-hole models for deterministically placed acceptor arrays in silicon

We compute the electronic structure of acceptor clusters in silicon by using three methods to include electron correlations: the full configuration interaction, the Heitler-London approximation, and the unrestricted Hartree-Fock method. We show both the HL approach and the UHF method are good approximations to the ground state of the full CI calculation for a pair of acceptors and for finite linear chains. The total energies for finite linear chains show the formation of a 4-fold degenerate ground state when there is a weak bond at the end of the chain, which is shown to be a manifold of topological edge states. We identify a change in the angular momentum composition of the ground state at a critical pattern of bond lengths and show it is related to a crossing in the Fock matrix eigenvalues. We also test the symmetry of the UHF solution and compare it to the full CI; the symmetry is broken under almost all the arrangements by the formation of a magnetic state in UHF, and we find further broken symmetries for some particular arrangements related to crossings or potential crossings between the Fock-matrix eigenvalues. We also compute the charge distributions across the acceptors obtained from the eigenvectors of the Fock matrix: with weak bonds at the chain ends, two holes are localized at either end of the chain while the others have a nearly uniform distribution over the middle; this implies the existence of the non-trivial edge states. We apply the UHF method to treat an infinite linear chain with periodic boundary conditions. We find the band structures in the UHF approximation and compute the Zak phases for the occupied Fock-matrix eigenvalues; we find they do not correctly predict the topological edge states in this interacting system. We find direct study of the quantum numbers characterising the edge states provides a better insight into their topological nature.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Rydberg Entangling Gates in Silicon

In this paper, we propose a new Rydberg entangling gate scheme which we demonstrate theoretically to have an order of magnitude improvement in fidelities and speed over existing protocols. We find that applying this gate to donors in silicon would help overcome the strenuous requirements on atomic precision donor placement and substantial gate tuning, which so far has hampered scaling. We calculate multivalley Rydberg interactions for several donor species using the Finite Element Method, and show that induced electric dipole and Van der Waals interactions, calculated here for the first time, are important even for low-lying excited states. We show that Rydberg gate operation is possible within the lifetime of donor excited states with 99.9% fidelity for the creation of a Bell state in the presence of decoherence.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Topological phases of a dimerized Fermi-Hubbard model for semiconductor nano-lattices

Motivated by recent advances in fabricating artificial lattices in semiconductors and their promise for quantum simulation of topological materials, we study the one-dimensional dimerized Fermi-Hubbard model. We show how the topological phases at half-filling can be characterized by a reduced Zak phase defined based on the reduced density matrix of each spin subsystem. Signatures of bulk-boundary correspondence are observed in the triplon excitation of the bulk and the edge states of uncoupled spins at the boundaries. At quarter-filling we show that owing to the presence of the Hubbard interaction the system can undergo a transition to the topological ground state of the non-interacting Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model with the application of a moderate-strength external magnetic field. We propose a robust experimental realization with a chain of dopant atoms in silicon or gate-defined quantum dots in GaAs where the transition can be probed by measuring the tunneling current through the many-body state of the chain.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2019

Optically Controlled Entangling Gates in Randomly Doped Silicon

Randomly-doped silicon has many competitive advantages for quantum computation; not only is it fast to fabricate but it could naturally contain high numbers of qubits and logic gates as a function of doping densities. We determine the densities of entangling gates in randomly doped silicon comprising two different dopant species. First, we define conditions and plot maps of the relative locations of the dopants necessary for them to form exchange interaction mediated entangling gates. Second, using nearest neighbour Poisson point process theory, we calculate the doping densities necessary for maximal densities of single and dual-species gates. We find agreement of our results with a Monte Carlo simulation, for which we present the algorithms, which handles multiple donor structures and scales optimally with the number of dopants and use it to extract donor structures not captured by our Poisson point process theory. Third, using the moving average cluster expansion technique, we make predictions for a proof of principle experiment demonstrating the control of one species by the orbital excitation of another. These combined approaches to density optimization in random distributions may be useful for other condensed matter systems as well as applications outside physics.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2018

2D-3D crossover in a dense electron liquid in silicon

Doping of silicon via phosphene exposures alternating with molecular beam epitaxy overgrowth is a path to Si:P substrates for conventional microelectronics and quantum information technologies. The technique also provides a new and well-controlled material for systematic studies of two-dimensional lattices with a half-filled band. We show here that for a dense ($n_s=2.8\times 10^{14}$\,cm$^{-2}$) disordered two-dimensional array of P atoms, the full field angle-dependent magnetostransport is remarkably well described by classic weak localization theory with no corrections due to interaction effects. The two- to three-dimensional cross-over seen upon warming can also be interpreted using scaling concepts, developed for anistropic three-dimensional materials, which work remarkably except when the applied fields are nearly parallel to the conducting planes.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2018

Extended Hubbard model for mesoscopic transport in donor arrays in silicon

Arrays of dopants in silicon are promising platforms for the quantum simulation of the Fermi-Hubbard model. We show that the simplest model with only on-site interaction is insufficient to describe the physics of an array of phosphorous donors in silicon due to the strong intersite interaction in the system. We also study the resonant tunneling transport in the array at low temperature as a mean of probing the features of the Hubbard physics, such as the Hubbard bands and the Mott gap. Two mechanisms of localization which suppresses transport in the array are investigated: The first arises from the electron-ion core attraction and is significant at low filling; the second is due to the sharp oscillation in the tunnel coupling caused by the intervalley interference of the donor electron's wavefunction. This disorder in the tunnel coupling leads to a steep exponential decay of conductance with channel length in one-dimensional arrays, but its effect is less prominent in two-dimensional ones. Hence, it is possible to observe resonant tunneling transport in a relatively large array in two dimensions.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2017

Exact location of dopants below the Si(001):H surface from scanning tunnelling microscopy and density functional theory

Control of dopants in silicon remains the most important approach to tailoring the properties of electronic materials for integrated circuits, with Group V impurities the most important n-type dopants. At the same time, silicon is finding new applications in coherent quantum devices, thanks to the magnetically quiet environment it provides for the impurity orbitals. The ionization energies and the shape of the dopant orbitals depend on the surfaces and interfaces with which they interact. The location of the dopant and local environment effects will therefore determine the functionality of both future quantum information processors and next-generation semiconductor devices. Here we match observed dopant wavefunctions from low-temperature scanning tunnelling microscopy (STM) to images simulated from first-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations. By this combination of experiment and theory we precisely determine the substitutional sites of neutral As dopants between 5 and 15A below the Si(001):H surface. In the process we gain a full understanding of the interaction of the donor-electron state with the surface, and hence of the transition between the bulk dopant (with its delocalised hydrogenic orbital) and the previously studied dopants in the surface layer.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2016

Sub-molecular modulation of a 4f driven Kondo resonance by surface-induced asymmetry

Coupling between a magnetic impurity and an external bath can give rise to many-body quantum phenomena, including Kondo and Hund's impurity states in metals, and Yu-Shiba-Rusinov states in superconductors. While advances have been made in probing the magnetic properties of d-shell impurities on surfaces, the confinement of f orbitals makes them difficult to access directly. Here we show that a 4f driven Kondo resonance can be modulated spatially by asymmetric coupling between a metallic surface and a molecule containing a 4f-like moment. Strong hybridisation of dysprosium double-decker phthalocyanine with Cu(001) induces Kondo screening of the central magnetic moment. Misalignment between the symmetry axes of the molecule and the surface induces asymmetry in the molecule's electronic structure, spatially mediating electronic access to the magnetic moment through the Kondo resonance. This work demonstrates the important role that molecular ligands play in mediating electronic and magnetic coupling and in accessing many-body quantum states.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Tunable magnetoresistance in an asymmetrically coupled single molecule junction

Phenomena that are highly sensitive to magnetic fields can be exploited in sensors and non-volatile memories. The scaling of such phenomena down to the single molecule level may enable novel spintronic devices. Here we report magnetoresistance in a single molecule junction arising from negative differential resistance that shifts in a magnetic field at a rate two orders of magnitude larger than Zeeman shifts. This sensitivity to the magnetic field produces two voltage-tunable forms of magnetoresistance, which can be selected via the applied bias. The negative differential resistance is caused by transient charging of an iron phthalocyanine (FePc) molecule on a single layer of copper nitride (Cu2N) on a Cu(001) surface, and occurs at voltages corresponding to the alignment of sharp resonances in the filled and empty molecular states with the Cu(001) Fermi energy. An asymmetric voltage-divider effect enhances the apparent voltage shift of the negative differential resistance with magnetic field, which inherently is on the scale of the Zeeman energy. These results illustrate the impact that asymmetric coupling to metallic electrodes can have on transport through molecules, and highlight how this coupling can be used to develop molecular spintronic applications.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2010

Ultralong Copper Phthalocyanine Nanowires with New Crystal Structure and Broad Optical Absorption

The development of molecular nanostructures plays a major role in emerging organic electronic applications, as it leads to improved performance and is compatible with our increasing need for miniaturisation. In particular, nanowires have been obtained from solution or vapour phase and have displayed high conductivity, or large interfacial areas in solar cells. In all cases however, the crystal structure remains as in films or bulk, and the exploitation of wires requires extensive post-growth manipulation as their orientations are random. Here we report copper phthalocyanine (CuPc) nanowires with diameters of 10-100 nm, high directionality and unprecedented aspect ratios. We demonstrate that they adopt a new crystal phase, designated eta-CuPc, where the molecules stack along the long axis. The resulting high electronic overlap along the centimetre length stacks achieved in our wires mediates antiferromagnetic couplings and broadens the optical absorption spectrum. The ability to fabricate ultralong, flexible metal phthalocyanine nanowires opens new possibilities for applications of these simple molecules.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2010

Separation-dependent localization in a two-impurity spin-boson model

Using a variational approach we investigate the delocalized to localized crossover in the ground state of an Ohmic two-impurity spin-boson model, describing two otherwise non-interacting spins coupled to a common bosonic environment. We show that a competition between an environment-induced Ising spin interaction and externally applied fields leads to variations in the system-bath coupling strength, $α_c$, at which the delocalized-localized crossover occurs. Specifically, the crossover regime lies between $α_c=0.5$ and $α_c=1$ depending upon the spin separation and the strength of the transverse tunneling field. This is in contrast to the analogous single spin case, for which the crossover occurs (in the scaling limit) at fixed $α_c\approx1$. We also discuss links between the two-impurity spin-boson model and a dissipative two-spin transverse Ising model, showing that the latter possesses the same qualitative features as the Ising strength is varied. Finally, we show that signatures of the crossover may be observed in single impurity observables, as well as in the behaviour of the system-environment entanglement.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2009

Long-lived spin entanglement induced by a spatially correlated thermal bath

We investigate how two spatially separated qubits coupled to a common heat bath can be entangled by purely dissipative dynamics. We identify a dynamical time scale associated with the lifetime of the dissipatively generated entanglement and show that it can be much longer than either the typical single-qubit decoherence time or the time scale on which a direct exchange interaction can entangle the qubits. We give an approximate analytical expression for the long-time evolution of the qubit concurrence and propose an ion trap scheme in which such dynamics should be observable.

quant-ph↗