Seminar: Dhiren Manji Kara, University of Cambridge

The scaling up of quantum technologies toward implementation requires the interconnection of energetically disparate quantum systems used for storing, processing and transmitting information. One promising idea to overcome this central challenge is to use phonons for transduction of quantum information. However, phonons typically couple only very weakly to electrons, photons and nuclear spins, which are the mainstays of current quantum hardware. There has been great progress in the last 10 years of enhancing this coupling and controlling phonons in the quantum regime, driven in part by improved nanofabrication techniques. Our work on this front is motivated by the ability to isolate and fabricate nano to micro-scale devices made from atomically thin material that is also optically active.

During the talk I will give a brief overview of some of the different platforms being pursued for quantum information technologies. I will explain why transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), a class of semi-conducting direct bandgap 2d materials, are particularly interesting for interconnecting quantum networks with information processors. Our results on optically active TMD quantum dots and more recent work with mono-layer TMD mechanical resonators will also be presented.