Speaker: Alp Sipahigil, University of California, Berkeley

Title: Next-generation silicon quantum devices

The past decade witnessed major advances in our ability to engineer quantum systems for emerging quantum technologies. Current industrial efforts are focusing on scaling quantum processors based on qubit technologies developed in the past few decades with known limitations.  In this talk, I will present our group’s work on enabling next-generation integrated microwave, phononic, and photonic quantum technologies in silicon.

Silicon photonics is the backbone of our modern telecommunication infrastructure. However, its application to quantum computation and communication is currently limited by the lack of strong spin-photon and photon-photon interactions. I will discuss a new approach to address this challenge using recently discovered telecom-band quantum emitters in silicon. I will present our first-principles search for an ideal defect in silicon1,2,3, and discuss experiments demonstrating indistinguishable photon generation from a single silicon defect for the first time3. I will conclude by discussing progress towards realizing an integrated photonic quantum repeater node and advancing superconducting quantum processors via defect engineering.

[1] Y. Xiong et al., “High-throughput identification of spin-photon interfaces in silicon”, arXiv:2303.01594 (2023)

[2]Y. Xiong at al., “Midgap state requirements for optically active quantum defects”

[3] Dhaliah et al., “First-principles study of the T center in silicon”, Phys. Rev. Materials 6, L053201 (2022)

[4] Komza et al., “Indistinguishable photons from an artificial atom in silicon photonics”, arXiv:2211.09305 (2022)

Bio:

Alp Sipahigil is the Ping & Amy Chao Family Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. He has joint appointments as a Faculty Scientist at the Materials Sciences Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and a supporting appointment at UC Berkeley Physics. He leads the Berkeley Quantum Devices Group which focuses on solid-state device research to advance quantum computation, communication and sensing. His group studies a wide range of physical systems including superconducting quantum circuits, color centers, integrated photonics and phononics. 

Prior to joining Berkeley in 2021, he was an Institute for Quantum Information and Matter postdoctoral scholar at Caltech. He received his Ph.D. in Physics from Harvard University in 2017 and his B.S. degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from Bogazici University in 2010.