(Invited) N@C60 and N@C70 for Quantum Information Processing: Beyond Qubits

Abstract

Endohedral fullerenes such as N@C60, where a single atomic nitrogen is trapped inside the fullerene cage, have been proposed as qubit architectures due to the remarkably long relaxation times of their p-electron spins (T1 = 0.375 ms, T2 = 0.25 ms). Molecular quantum computers are still at the fringes of the field as recent developments have focused on other implementations such as superconducting qubits. However, molecular approaches present some advantages such as the ability to use chemical functionalization for scaling up qubit architectures. This, combined with continuous progress on miniaturization of electrodes via e-beam lithography and other techniques, means that molecular approaches will continue to be of interest.In this talk, I will review the field of fullerene-based quantum information processing. I will present progress on the synthesis, chemical functionalization and alignment of N@C60 and N@C70 in different matrices. Recently, we were able to align N@C60 and N@C70 derivatives in a liquid crystal matrix with ordering parameter Ozz = 0.61. With the aligned samples, we were able to achieve addressability of the available 4-electron spin levels in endohedral nitrogen by coherent manipulations.Furthermore, these functionalized molecules give rise to endohedral fullerene qudits: multi-level computational units alternative to the conventional 2-level qubits. Qudits offer a larger state space for encoding information and thus can offer enhancement of quantum algorithm efficiency. Indeed, we were able to demonstrate the first ever geometric phase using pulsed EPR; something that was first proposed over 30 years ago!