/ Forschung

A Backgate for Enhanced Tunability of Holes in Planar Germanium

Graphical Abstract

New publication by Luigi Ruggiero, Arianna Nigro, Ilaria Zardo, and Andrea Hofmann (Nano Let. X, XXXX)

Planar semiconductor heterostructures offer versatile device designs and are promising candidates for scalable quantum computing. Notably, heterostructures based on strained germanium have been extensively studied in recent years, with an emphasis on their strong and tunable spin–orbit interaction, low effective mass, and high hole mobility. However, planar systems are still limited by the fact that the shape of the confinement potential is directly related to the density. In this work, we present the successful implementation of a backgate for a planar germanium heterostructure. The backgate, in combination with a topgate, enables independent control over the density and the electric field, which determines important state properties such as the effective mass, the g-factor, and the quantum lifetime. This unparalleled degree of control paves the way toward engineering qubit properties and facilitates the targeted tuning of bilayer quantum wells, which promise denser qubit packing.