Katsaros Group
Nanoelectronics
It is impossible to picture modern life without thinking of the vast amount of microelectronic applications that surround us. However, such development has only been made possible with the invention of the transistor in the 50’s. This – back at that time – few centimeters large device, product of mere scientific curiosity, led to a technological revolution. Today the size of the transistors has been shrunk to less than 14 nm and quantum physics comes into play. Researchers in basic research are trying to develop new concepts which will use quantum mechanics and allow information processing to operate on completely different principles.
In this line, Loss and DiVincenzo suggested the use of electron spins confined in lithographically defined quantum dots as elementary qubits to realize a quantum computer. In the past few years Si and Ge have emerged as very promising hosts for the realization of spin qubits since they can be isotopically purified which can thus lead to very long coherence times. In parallel to the development of spin qubits, there has been recently a huge wave of excitement in the prospect of using topological qubits for quantum computation. Such topological qubits are predicted to be robust versus decoherence. In the main focus of these proposals are the so-called Majorana fermions, introduced by Majorana more than 70 years ago. Various studies have suggested the use of topological insulators and semiconductor nanowires for the realization of Majorana fermions.
In the nanoelectronics group we study spin qubits in Ge based systems, self-assembled nanostructures and lithographically defined QDs in two dimensional hole gases. In parallel we aim to understand whether Majorana fermions can be realized and detected in a hole-type system. Finally, hybrid Al/InAs nanowire devices are studied in order to prove the topological properties of Majorana fermions. While our research is focused on the realization of different types of qubits, the group is very much interested in studying new fundamental physics emerging in semiconductor nanodevices.
Group Leader
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Team
Current Projects
Towards hole spin qubits and Majorana fermions in Germanium | Hybrid semiconductor-superconductor quantum devices | Hole spin orbit qubits in Ge quantum wells | Towards scalable hut wire devices | Topologically protected and scalable quantum bits
Publications
Kukucka J. 2020. Implementation of a hole spin qubit in Ge hut wires and dispersive spin sensing, IST Austria, 178p. View
Katsaros G, Kukucka J, Vukušić L, Watzinger H, Gao F, Wang T, Zhang J-J, Held K. 2020. Zero field splitting of heavy-hole states in quantum dots. Nano Letters. 20(7), 5201–5206. View
Gao F, Wang J-H, Watzinger H, Hu H, Rančić MJ, Zhang J-Y, Wang T, Yao Y, Wang G-L, Kukucka J, Vukušić L, Kloeffel C, Loss D, Liu F, Katsaros G, Zhang J-J. 2020. Site-controlled uniform Ge/Si hut wires with electrically tunable spin-orbit coupling. Advanced Materials., 1906523. View
Ridderbos J, Brauns M, Shen J, de Vries FK, Li A, Bakkers EPAM, Brinkman A, Zwanenburg FA. 2018. Josephson effect in a few-hole quantum dot. Advanced Materials. 30(44), 1802257. View
Hollmann A, Jirovec D, Kucharski M, Kissinger D, Fischer G, Schreiber LR. 2018. 30 GHz-voltage controlled oscillator operating at 4 K. Review of Scientific Instruments. 89(11), 114701. View
Career
since 2016 Assistant Professor, IST Austria
2012 – 2016 Group Leader, Johannes Kepler University, Linz, Austria
2011 – 2012 Group Leader, Leibniz Institute for Solid State and Materials Research, Dresden, Germany
2006 – 2010 Postdoc, CEA, Grenoble, France
2006 PhD, Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, Stuttgart, Germany
2001 – 2002 Research Assistant, National Center for Scientific Research “Demokritos”, Athens, Greece
Selected Distinctions
2015 Elected member of the Young Academy of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW)
2013 ERC Starting Grant
2013 FWF START Award
2012 FWF Lise Meitner Fellowship
2011 Marie Curie Carrier Integration Grant
