Interface effects on acceptor qubits in silicon and germanium

Abstract

Dopant-based quantum computing implementations often require the dopants to be situated close to an interface to facilitate qubit manipulation with local gates. Interfaces not only modify the energies of the bound states but also affect their symmetry. Making use of the successful effective mass theory we study the energy spectra of acceptors in Si or Ge taking into account the quantum confinement, the dielectric mismatch and the central cell effects. The presence of an interface puts constraints to the allowed symmetries and leads to the splitting of the ground state in two Kramers doublets (Mol et al 2015 Appl. Phys. Lett. 106 203110). Inversion symmetry breaking also implies parity mixing which affects the allowed optical transitions. Consequences for acceptor qubits are discussed.