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Room-Temperature Defect Qubits in Ultrasmall Nanocrystals

[Image: see text] There is an urgent quest for room-temperature qubits in nanometer-sized, ultrasmall nanocrystals for quantum biosensing, hyperpolarization of biomolecules, and quantum information processing. Thus far, the preparation of such qubits at the nanoscale has remained futile. Here, we pr...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Beke, Dávid, Valenta, Jan, Károlyházy, Gyula, Lenk, Sándor, Czigány, Zsolt, Márkus, Bence Gábor, Kamarás, Katalin, Simon, Ferenc, Gali, Adam
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Chemical Society 2020
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7307950/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32040330
http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acs.jpclett.0c00052
Descripción
Sumario:[Image: see text] There is an urgent quest for room-temperature qubits in nanometer-sized, ultrasmall nanocrystals for quantum biosensing, hyperpolarization of biomolecules, and quantum information processing. Thus far, the preparation of such qubits at the nanoscale has remained futile. Here, we present a synthesis method that avoids any interaction of the solid with high-energy particles and uses self-propagated high-temperature synthesis with a subsequent electrochemical method, the no-photon exciton generation chemistry to produce room-temperature qubits in ultrasmall nanocrystals of sizes down to 3 nm with high yield. We first create the host silicon carbide (SiC) crystallites by high-temperature synthesis and then apply wet chemical etching, which results in ultrasmall SiC nanocrystals and facilitates the creation of thermally stable defect qubits in the material. We demonstrate room-temperature optically detected magnetic resonance signal of divacancy qubits with 3.5% contrast from these nanoparticles with emission wavelengths falling in the second biological window (1000–1380 nm). These results constitute the formation of nonperturbative bioagents for quantum sensing and efficient hyperpolarization.