Rare-earth ions in low symmetry sites for quantum information

This collaborative project between researchers at the University of Canterbury (UoC), University of Otago (UoO), and several international collaborators (from Australia, France, and USA) that seeks to elucidate the properties of rare-earth ions and their potential applications in emerging quantum technologies. Rare-earth doped bulk crystals, thin films, and nanoparticles are strong candidates for quantum-information applications such as coherent storage in ensembles of ions, addressing of individual ions, and microwave-optical transduction of quantum states to aid superconducting qubit-based quantum computing. As such this project has strong overlap with the other quantum projects in both the One and the Many Beacons, as well as with the newly established Quantum Technologies Aotearoa (QTA) programme. The theory and synthesis of these doped rare earth crystals will be led out of UoC, with the synthesised crystals then used for experimental work at UoO.