Bioinspired Molecular Qubits and Nanoparticle Ensembles That Could Be Initialized, Manipulated, and Read Out under Mild Conditions

Abstract

Quantum computation and quantum information processing are emerging technologies that have potential to overcome the physical limitation of traditional computation systems. Present quantum systems based on photons, atoms, and molecules, however, all face challenges such as short coherence time, requirement of ultralow temperature and/or high vacuum, and lack of scalability. We report new types of molecular qubits and nanoparticle ensembles based on thermally controllable transformation between J-aggregation and monomeric states of molecular chromophores using pyrrolopyrrole cyanine tethered with polymeric chains such as polycaprolactones as an example. Such supramolecular quantum systems, resembling some feature of light harvesting complexes in photosynthesis, provide new opportunities for manipulating quantum information under mild conditions, which do not require complicated ultracooling and/or high vacuum often involved in superconducting qubits or Rydberg atoms for quantum computation and information processing.