A silicon spin qubit encodes quantum information in the spin of a single electron trapped in a quantum dot formed within silicon. It is a specific type of spin qubit, distinguished by its host material. Silicon offers a particularly clean environment for the electron’s spin, which helps the qubit retain its quantum state for longer.
The defining advantage of silicon is manufacturing. Silicon spin qubits are made using the same CMOS processes that produce the transistors in everyday electronics, so they can be fabricated in commercial semiconductor foundries. Their footprint is remarkably small, at roughly one square micrometre per qubit, which allows very large numbers of qubits to be placed on a single chip.
This is the approach Quantum Motion is built around. By manufacturing silicon spin qubits on industry-standard wafers, the company aims to draw on the scale and maturity of the semiconductor industry to reach the millions of qubits that fault-tolerant quantum computing will require. Silicon spin qubits also benefit from long coherence times, a further reason for choosing the platform.
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- Why Silicon is the Path to Useful Quantum Computers | Quantum Motion | Blog