2005/11/21 by Simon C. Benjamin, Simon C Benjamin, Arzhang Ardavan +23 · 6 citations
Chemistry · Engineering · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Fullerene Chemistry and Applications #Graphene research and applications #Semiconductor materials and devices #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0953-8984/18/21/s12
published as Journal of Physics: Condensed Matter, Volume 18, Issue 21, pp. S867-S883 (2006). · 20 pages, 13 figs, single column format
arxiv created 2005/11/21 · openalex publication_date 2006/05/12 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Molecular structures appear to be natural candidates for a quantum technology: individual atoms can support quantum superpositions for long periods, and such atoms can in principle be embedded in a permanent molecular scaffolding to form an array. This would be true nanotechnology, with dimensions of order of a nanometre. However, the challenges of realizing such a vision are immense. One must identify a suitable elementary unit and demonstrate its merits for qubit storage and manipulation, including input/output. These units must then be formed into large arrays corresponding to an functional quantum architecture, including a mechanism for gate operations. Here we report our efforts, both experimental and theoretical, to create such a technology based on endohedral fullerenes or 'buckyballs'. We describe our successes with respect to these criteria, along with the obstacles we are currently facing and the questions that remain to be addressed.