Welcome to the MechaSpin project

MechaSpin is a collaborative research project funded by the French National Research Agency (ANR contract number ANR-17-CE24-0024).

This 42-month project started in March 2018. It brings together three leading French teams, at Neel Institute (Grenoble), C2N (Saclay) and INAC (Grenoble), which are specialized in the spectroscopy, manipulation and ab-initio modeling of individual dopants in semiconductors.

The aim of the MechaSpin project is to demonstrate the potential of using the spin of individual magnetic atoms in a semiconductor nanostructure as an optically addressable qubits for hybrid spin-mechanical systems. The project is structured around two main objectives:

  • The development of a complete mechanical coherent control of the spin of an individual Cr atom inserted in a semiconductor quantum dot (QD) using Surface Acoustic Waves (SAW) excitation.
  • The STM tip-assisted manipulation and implantation of Cr for the realization of model arrays of Cr atoms in a semiconductor.

These are the preliminary steps required for the demonstration and exploitation in quantum devices of the long-range mechanical coupling between spins of precisely localized identical individual atoms.