Project B3: Nuclear Spin Control in Lanthanide Qudits

Molecular magnetism draws from the fundamental ideas of structural chemistry and combines them with experimental physics resulting in molecular materials that exhibit multifunctionality. Recent advances in the design of new generations of multifunctional molecular magnets provide evidence that they may be useful for the future construction of nanoscale devices exhibiting pronounced quantum effects in the single-molecule limit. At present, this field is rapidly evolving towards the use of these chemically-designed magnetic molecules and materials in other emerging fields including molecular spintronics and quantum computing. Quantum technologies are expected to introduce revolutionary changes in information processing in the near future. Nowadays, one of the main challenges is to be able to handle a large number of quantum bits (qubits), while preserving their quantum properties. Thus, Single-molecule magnets (SMMs) and molecule-based spin quantum bits (qubits and qudits) are promising candidates for the development of quantum computing, which may bring opportunities for the second quantum revolution. The power of chemistry to prepare new molecules and materials has driven this quest – the intrinsic quantum nature of the electronic, nuclear and spin degrees of freedom in molecules offers intriguing new possibilities to advance the emerging field of quantum information science. The aim of the project is to address the nuclear spin degree of freedom in magnetic molecules suited to act as spin qudits in quantum operations. 

Project leaders: 
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wernsdorfer (KIT) 
Prof. Dr. Mario Ruben (KIT)