Exploiting chemistry and molecular systems for quantum information science

Michael R Wasielewski; Malcolm D E Forbes; Natia L Frank; Karol Kowalski; Gregory D Scholes; Joel Yuen-Zhou; Marc A Baldo; Danna E Freedman; Randall H Goldsmith; Theodore Goodson 3rd; Martin L Kirk; James K McCusker; Jennifer P Ogilvie; David A Shultz; Stefan Stoll; K Birgitta Whaley

doi:10.1038/s41570-020-0200-5

Exploiting chemistry and molecular systems for quantum information science

Nat Rev Chem. 2020 Sep;4(9):490-504. doi: 10.1038/s41570-020-0200-5. Epub 2020 Jul 7.

Authors

Michael R Wasielewski¹, Malcolm D E Forbes², Natia L Frank³, Karol Kowalski⁴, Gregory D Scholes⁵, Joel Yuen-Zhou⁶, Marc A Baldo⁷, Danna E Freedman⁸, Randall H Goldsmith⁹, Theodore Goodson 3rd¹⁰, Martin L Kirk¹¹, James K McCusker¹², Jennifer P Ogilvie¹⁰, David A Shultz¹³, Stefan Stoll¹⁴, K Birgitta Whaley¹⁵

Affiliations

¹ Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA. [email protected].
² Department of Chemistry, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA.
³ Department of Chemistry, University of Nevada-Reno, Reno, Nevada, USA.
⁴ Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA, USA.
⁵ Department of Chemistry, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
⁶ Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
⁷ Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA.
⁸ Department of Chemistry, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA.
⁹ Department of Chemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
¹⁰ Department of Chemistry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
¹¹ Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
¹² Department of Chemistry, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA.
¹³ Department of Chemistry, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA.
¹⁴ Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
¹⁵ Department of Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA.

PMID: 37127960
DOI: 10.1038/s41570-020-0200-5

Abstract

The power of chemistry to prepare new molecules and materials has driven the quest for new approaches to solve problems having global societal impact, such as in renewable energy, healthcare and information science. In the latter case, 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. In this Perspective, which resulted from discussions by the co-authors at a US Department of Energy workshop held in November 2018, we discuss how chemical systems and reactions can impact quantum computing, communication and sensing. Hierarchical molecular design and synthesis, from small molecules to supramolecular assemblies, combined with new spectroscopic probes of quantum coherence and theoretical modelling of complex systems, offer a broad range of possibilities to realize practical quantum information science applications.

Publication types

Review