Condensed Matter Physics Seminar
Monday, November 25, 2002
4:10 p.m., Room 1400 Biomedical and Physical Sciences Building
   Refreshments served at 3:45 p.m. in 1400A BPS Buildng

Speaker:
   Duncan Steel
   The Peter S. Fuss Professor
   The University of Michigan

Title:
   Semiconductor Quantum Dots: Artificial Atoms for Quantum Computing

Abstract:
Coherent nonlinear optical experiments show semiconductor quantum dots
have optical properties very similar to simple atomic systems but are
surprisingly robust against decoherence and have large dipole moments.  By
combining advances in nano-optical probing methodologies with the power of
coherent nonlinear optical spectroscopy techniques, the measurements have
enabled us to extend concepts of coherent optical control and wave
function engineering to a single quantum dot exciton.  Semiconductor
quantum dots have formed the basis for several proposals for quantum logic
devices of interest to quantum computation.  Our measurements have now
provided the first observation of optically induced and detected quantum
entanglement of the pseudo spins associated with two different excitons.
The measurements also show our progress towards demonstrating a
quantum-controlled not-gate including Rabi oscillations on the ground
state to exciton transition and exciton to biexciton transition thus
demonstrating this critical gate.