(Invited) A Pophyrin-centered Fullerene Tetramer Containing N@C60

Abstract

N@C60, single atomic nitrogen incarcerated within a C60 fullerene, has been proposed as a qubit architecture due to the remarkably long relaxation times of its p-electron spins (T1 = 0.375 ms, T2 = 0.25 ms). Versatile methodologies for the chemical functionalization of N@C60 and large-scale production (approx. 1015 qubits per hour) mark it as a promising alternative to today's predominantly inorganic QIP (quantum information processing) systems. For the N@C60 system to be realized as a viable QIP system, qubit–qubit interactions must be well characterized, controlled entanglement must be demonstrated and scalable arrays must be assembled. Qubit–qubit interactions were previously characterized by the measurement of the paramagnetic dipolar coupling strength between two units in an N@C60 dimer by continuous wave electron paramagnetic resonance (cw-EPR) spectroscopy. However, the interactions of arrays of more than two qubits are yet to be explored. In this talk, I will describe a tetraphenylporphyrin-centered N@C60-containing C60 tetramer, which provides a scaffold for the measurement of dipolar interactions in arrays of up to four qubits, and is the largest N@C60-containing C60 array synthesized to date. N@C60 compatible synthesis of this tetramer is the proof of concept that it can be used to characterize many-qubit interactions if the reaction is repeated with high purity N@C60.