Semiconductor heterostructures for quantum devices

We investigate the fundamental properties and the possible applications of quantum structures made of group IV semiconductors such silicon, germanium, tin and carbon. By controlling the deposition of the materials at the atomic-scale, we can realize heterostructures in which the charge carriers can be confined in nm-thick wells and boxes. In this way it is possible to  control and engineer the carrier properties exploiting all the peculiarity of  quantum mechanics.

The current research activity is focused on:

• the realization of a quantum cascade laser based on GeSi that exploits the transitions of electrons between quantum confined states to emit light in the THz range. This activity is funded by the EC-FET OPEN project FLASH, coordinated by Prof. M De Seta.
• The realization of silicon-based q-bits, the nanodevice at the basis of a quantum computer. In this approach one aims at controlling, manipulating, and reading the spin state of electrons confined in nm-wide quantum dots made of silicon, germanium and their alloys.

Highlights

• Controlled electron-state coupling in asymmetric Ge/GeSi multi-quantum well
  https://journals.aps.org/prapplied/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.11.014003
• Gate-controlled quantum dots and superconductivity in planar germanium
  https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05299-x

Links: Link identifier #identifier__197625-1https://www.flash-project.euLink identifier #identifier__47783-2/

Membri

• Monica De Seta
• Luciana Di Gaspare
• Luca Persichetti
• Michele Montanari
• Giovanni Capellini
• Chiara Ciano (Ph. D)

Collaborazioni

• Università La Sapienza
• CNR-IFN; CNR-IMM; CNR-SPIN
• Univ. Milano Bicocca
• LNESS-Politecnico Milano
• Università Pisa
• IHP Leibniz Institut Innovation for High Performance Microelectronics-(Ger)
• Helmotz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (Ger)
• Forschungszentrum Juelich (Ger);
• University of Glasgow (UK)
• ETH Zürich (CH)
• NextNano(Ger)
• TU-Delft (NL)