Coulomb-mediated antibunching of an electron pair surfing on sound

• Main Authors: Bäuerle, C. (Author), Edlbauer, H. (Author), Kaneko, N.-H (Author), Kodera, T. (Author), Ludwig, A. (Author), Meunier, T. (Author), Ota, S. (Author), Park, W. (Author), Richard, A. (Author), Sellier, H. (Author), Shim, J. (Author), Sim, H.-S (Author), Takada, S. (Author), Urdampilleta, M. (Author), Waintal, X. (Author), Wang, J. (Author), Wieck, A.D (Author)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Nature Research 2023
• Subjects: Acoustic surface wave devices; Acoustic waves; Anti-bunching; article; Coulomb interactions; Degrees of freedom (mechanics); electron; Electron pair; Electrons; Flying qubits; Information links; Orbital degree of freedom; Orbits; Processing units; Quanta computers; Quantum optics; Self standings; Single-particle; sound; Spin degrees of freedom
• Online Access: View Fulltext in Publisher
• ISBN: 17483387 (ISSN)
• ISSN: 17483387 (ISSN)
• DOI: 10.1038/s41565-023-01368-5

Electron flying qubits are envisioned as potential information links within a quantum computer, but also promise—like photonic approaches—to serve as self-standing quantum processing units. In contrast to their photonic counterparts, electron-quantum-optics implementations are subject to Coulomb interactions, which provide a direct route to entangle the orbital or spin degree of freedom. However, controlled interaction of flying electrons at the single-particle level has not yet been established experimentally. Here we report antibunching of a pair of single electrons that is synchronously shuttled through a circuit of coupled quantum rails by means of a surface acoustic wave. The in-flight partitioning process exhibits a reciprocal gating effect which allows us to ascribe the observed repulsion predominantly to Coulomb interaction. Our single-shot experiment marks an important milestone on the route to realize a controlled-phase gate for in-flight quantum manipulations. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.