David Awschalom is the Liew Family Professor and Vice Dean for Research of the Pritzker School for Molecular Engineering at the University of Chicago, a Senior Scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, and Founding Director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange. He is also the inaugural Director of Q-NEXT, one of the US DOE Quantum Information Science Research Centers. He works in the fields of spintronics and quantum information engineering, exploring and controlling the spins of electrons, nuclei, and photons in semiconductors and molecules. His research includes implementations of information processing with potential applications in quantum computing, communication, and sensing.
Professor Awschalom received his BSc in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and his PhD in experimental physics from Cornell University. He was a research staff member and manager of the Nonequilibrium Physics Department at the IBM Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York. In 1991 he joined the University of California-Santa Barbara as a professor of physics, and in 2001 was additionally appointed as a professor of electrical and computer engineering. Prior to joining PME, he served as the Peter J. Clarke Professor and Director of the California NanoSystems Institute, and director of the Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation.
Professor Awschalom received the American Physical Society Oliver Buckley Prize and Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize, the European Physical Society Europhysics Prize, the Materials Research Society David Turnbull Award and Outstanding Investigator Prize, the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize, the International Magnetism Prize from the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics, and an IBM Outstanding Innovation Award. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the European Academy of Sciences. Awschalom recently received a U.S. Secretary of Energy Achievement Award.
Awschalom Group explores optical and magnetic interactions in semiconductor quantum structures, spin dynamics and coherence in condensed matter systems, macroscopic quantum phenomena in nanometer-scale magnets, and implementations of quantum information processing in the solid state. He developed a variety of femtosecond-resolved spatiotemporal spectroscopies and micromagnetic sensing techniques aimed at exploring charge and spin motion in the quantum domain. These measurements resulted in the discovery of robust electron spin coherence, transport of coherent states, and the spin Hall effect in semiconductors.
A fluorescent-protein spin qubit
J.S. Feder, B. S. Soloway, S. Verma, Z. Z. Geng, S. Wang, B. Kifle, E. G. Riendeau, Y. Tsaturyan, L. R. Weiss, M. Xie, J. Huang, A. Esser-Kahn, L. Gagliardi, D. D. Awschalom, P. C. Maurer. A fluorescent-protein spin qubit. 2024. arXiv:2411.16835
Practical hybrid PQC-QKD protocols with enhanced security and performance
P. Zeng, D. Bandyopadhyay, J. A. M. Méndez, N. Bitner, A. Kolar, M. T. Solomon, Z. Ye, F. Rozpȩdek, T. Zhong, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom, L. Jiang, J. Liu. Practical hybrid PQC-QKD protocols with enhanced security and performance. 2024. arXiv:2411.01086
Towards efficient and secure quantum-classical communication networks
P. Zeng, D. Bandyopadhyay, J. A. M. Méndez, N. Bitner, A. Kolar, M. T. Solomon, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom, L. Jiang, J. Liu. Towards efficient and secure quantum-classical communication networks. 2024. arXiv:2411.01081
Controlled Spalling of Single Crystal 4H-SiC Bulk Substrates
C. P. Horn, C. Wicker, A. Wellisz, C. Zeledon, P. V. K. Nittala, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom, S. Guha. Controlled Spalling of Single Crystal 4H-SiC Bulk Substrates. 2024. ACS Nano. 10.1021/acsnano.4c10978
Extended spin relaxation times of optically addressed vanadium defects in silicon carbide at telecommunication frequencies (Phys. Rev. Applied Editors' Suggestion)
J. Ahn, C. Wicker, N. Bitner, M. T. Solomon, B. Tissot, G. Burkard, A. M. Dibos, J. Zhang, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom. Extended spin relaxation times of optically addressed vanadium defects in silicon carbide at telecommunication frequencies. 2024. Phys. Rev. Applied 10.1103/PhysRevApplied.22.044078
Direct-bonded diamond membranes for heterogeneous quantum and electronic technologies
X. Guo, M. Xie, A. Addhya, A. Linder, U. Zvi, S. Wang, X. Yu, T. D. Deshmukh, Y. Liu, I. N. Hammock, Z. Li, C. T. DeVault, A. Butcher, A. P. Esser-Kahn, D. D. Awschalom, N. Delegan, P. C. Maurer, F. J. Heremans, A. A. High. Direct-bonded diamond membranes for heterogeneous quantum and electronic technologies. 2024. Nat. Comm. 10.1038/s41467-024-53150-3
Quantum spin probe of single charge dynamics (PRL Editors' Suggestion)
J. C. Marcks, M. Onizhuk, Y.-X. Wang, Y. Zhu, Y. Jin, B. S. Soloway, M. Fukami, N. Delegan, F. J. Heremans, A. A. Clerk, G. Galli, D. D. Awschalom. Quantum spin probe of single charge dynamics. 2024. Phys. Rev. Let. 10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.130802
Photonic-Cavity-Enhanced Laser Writing of Color Centers in Diamond
A. Addhya, V. Tyne, X. Guo, I. N. Hammock, Z. Li, M. Leung, C. T. DeVault, D. D. Awschalom, N. Delegan, F. J. Heremans, A. A. High. Photonic-Cavity-Enhanced Laser Writing of Color Centers in Diamond. 2024. Nano Lett. 10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c02639
Coherent Erbium Spin Defects in Colloidal Nanocrystal Hosts
J. Wong, M. Onizhuk, J. Nagura, A. S. Thind, J. K. Bindra, C. Wicker, G. D. Grant, Y. Zhang, J. Niklas, O. G. Poluektov, R. F. Klie, J. Zhang, G. Galli, F. J. Heremans, D. D. Awschalom, A. P. Alivisatos. Coherent Erbium Spin Defects in Colloidal Nanocrystal Hosts. 2024. Nano. Lett. 10.1021/acsnano.4c04083
Anomalous Purcell decay of strongly driven inhomogeneous emitters coupled to a cavity
M. T. Solomon, M. Koppenhöfer, C. Ji, G. Grant, I. Masiulionis, S. E. Sullivan, F. J. Heremans, S. Guha, D. D. Awschalom, A. A. Clerk, A. M. Dibos. Anomalous Purcell decay of strongly driven inhomogeneous emitters coupled to a cavity. 2024. Optica Quantum 2, 196-205. 10.1364/OPTICAQ.520843