Atomistic quantum dots

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016307112-A1
Application number	US-201615195459-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jun 28, 2016
Priority date	Jun 17, 2008
Publication date	Oct 20, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

A quantum device is provided that includes controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds extending from a surface of a semiconductor material. Each of the controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds has a separation of at least one atom of the semiconductor material. At least one electrode is provided for selectively modifying an electronic state of the controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds. By providing at least one additional electron within the controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds with the proviso that there exists at least one unoccupied dangling bond for each one additional electron present, the inventive device is operable at least to 293 degrees Kelvin and is largely immune to stray electrostatic perturbations. Room temperature operable quantum cellular automata and qubits are constructed therefrom.

First claim

1 . A method for operating an electronic state data storage device comprising: placing an electrostatic species in proximity to a plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds so as to perturb an electronic state of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds of a material with each of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds having a separation from the remainder of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds of at least one atom of said material.

2 . The method of claim 1 further comprising: at least one electrode to sense localization dynamics of a coupled dangling bond from amongst said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds, monitor the electronic state of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds, or a combination thereof.

3 . The method of claim 2 wherein said at least one electrode is above, below, or on a surface supporting said quantum device.

4 . The method of claim 2 wherein said at least one electrode comprises at least one of a thin film contact, a nanowire, or a scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) tip.

5 . The method of claim 4 wherein said STM tip is a single electrode device; and wherein said method further comprises using a first STM tip as a first logic input as a power source to perturb a dangling bond from amongst said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds so as to perturb an electronic state of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds, and using a second STM tip to monitor a coupled dangling bond electronic state responding to said perturbed dangling bond.

6 . The method of claim 5 wherein the electronic state of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds is one of two binary states.

7 . The method of claim 5 wherein the electronic state of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds is one of an infinite set of superpositioned values intermediate between digital logic levels of 0 and 1.

8 . The method of claim 1 wherein said material is silicon and each of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds extends from a silicon atom having silicon-silicon bonds.

9 . The method of claim 1 wherein said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds extend from a surface of said material.

10 . The method of claim 1 wherein the separation is between 2 and 200 Angstroms inclusive.

11 . The method of claim 1 wherein said separation is between 3 and 40 Angstroms inclusive.

12 . The method of claim 1 wherein said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds numbers 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6 dangling bonds.

13 . The method of claim 1 wherein at least one electrostatic perturbing dangling bond is two electrostatic dangling bonds diagonally placed relative to said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds arranged as four dangling bonds forming a rectilinear four coupled dangling bond entity.

14 . The method of claim 1 wherein said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds are four dangling bonds forming a rectilinear four coupled dangling bond entity and further comprising at least one electrostatic perturbing dangling bond.

15 . The method of claim 1 wherein said material further comprises a surface; and wherein said material supports a localized charge inducing an electrostatic potential extending at least 1 Angstrom from the surface.

16 . The method of claim 1 wherein said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds each has a dangling bond energy that is greater than a bulk semiconductor valence band edge and simultaneously lower in energy than a conduction band edge bottom for said material such that each of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds is energetically decoupled from the conduction band of said material.

17 . The method of claim 1 further comprising at least one additional electron within said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds with the proviso that there exists at least one unoccupied dangling bond for each of said at least one additional electron present.

18 . The method of claim 16 wherein said electronic state of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds is stable above 1 milli-Kelvin.

19 . The method of claim 1 wherein said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds numbers 2 dangling bonds and a rate of tunneling k tun therebetween satisfies the equation:
k tun =(ω/2π)× Dp 1e ,  (11)

where ω/2π is a frequency of tunneling attempts, D is the tunneling coefficient, and P 1e is the probability of having 1 extra electron in said 2 dangling bonds.

20 . The method of claim 1 further comprising suspending at least one electrode for selectively modifying the electronic state of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds.

21 . The method of claim 1 wherein the electronic state of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds is one of an infinite set of superpositioned values intermediate between digital logic levels of 0 and 1.

22 . A quantum cellular automata comprising a plurality of quantum devices, each of the plurality of devices being formed according to claim 1 ; and interconnections therebetween.

23 . The quantum cellular automata of claim 21 forming computations wherein said interconnections monitor the electronic state of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds.

24 . A method for operating an electronic state data storage device comprising: suspending at least one electrode for selectively modifying an electronic state of a plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds in proximity to said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds so as to perturb the electronic state of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds of a material with each of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds having a separation from the remainder of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds of at least one atom of said material.

25 . The method of claim 24 further comprising placing an electrostatic species in proximity to said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds so as to perturb the electronic state of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds of a material.

26 . The method of claim 24 wherein the electronic state of said plurality of controllably quantum mechanically coupled dangling bonds is one of an infinite set of superpositioned values intermediate between digital logic levels of 0 and 1 measurable at a temperature above 1 milli-Kelvin.

Assignees

• Nat Res Council Canada
• Univ Alberta

Inventors

• Dilabio Gino A
• Wolkow Robert A
• Pitters Jason L
• Piva Paul G

Classifications

• H10D48/383

  Quantum effect devices, e.g. of devices using quantum reflection, diffraction or interference effects · CPC title

• B82Y10/00

  Nanotechnology for information processing, storage or transmission, e.g. quantum computing or single electron logic · CPC title

• G06N99/002 Primary

  Physics · mapped topic

• H01L49/006

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H10N99/05 Primary

  Devices based on quantum mechanical effects, e.g. quantum interference devices or metal single-electron transistors · CPC title