09/28/2020

Echo effect opening up exciting new possibilities for working with quantum information

Stefan Rotter’s team (TU Wien) provides the theoretical explanation to experiments carried out at the Walther-Meissner-Institute in Garching by researchers from the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Technical University of Munich.

Small particles can have an angular momentum that points in a certain direction - the spin. This spin can be manipulated by a magnetic field. This principle, for example, is the basic idea behind magnetic resonance imaging as used in hospitals.

An international research team has now discovered a surprising effect in a system that is particularly well suited for processing quantum information: the spins of phosphorus atoms in a piece of silicon, coupled to a microwave resonator. If these spins are cleverly excited with microwave pulses, a so-called spin echo signal can be detected after a certain time - the injected pulse signal is re-emitted as a quantum echo. Surprisingly, this spin echo does not occur only once, but a whole series of echoes can be detected. This opens up new possibilities of how information can be processed with quantum systems.

The joint work has now been published: S. Weichselbaumer et al., Echo Trains in Pulsed Electron Spin Resonance of a Strongly Coupled Spin Ensemble, Phys. Rev. Lett. 125, 137701 (2020)

For more information see https://www.tuwien.at/en/tu-wien/news/news-articles/news/the-return-of-the-spin-echo/

 

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