A heat-resilient hole spin qubit in silicon

Abstract: Recent advances in scaling up spin-based quantum processors have revealed unanticipated issues related to thermal effects. Microwave pulses required to manipulate and read the qubits are found to overheat the spins environment, which unexpectedly induces Larmor frequency shifts, reducing thereby gate fidelities. In this study, we shine light on these elusive thermal effects, by experimentally characterizing the temperature dependence of the Larmor frequency for a single hole spin in silicon. Our results unambiguously reveal an electrical origin underlying the thermal susceptibility, stemming from the spin-orbit-induced electric susceptibility. We perform an accurate modeling of the spin electrostatic environment and gyromagnetic properties, allowing us to pinpoint electric dipoles as responsible for these frequency shifts, that unfreeze as the temperature increases. Surprisingly, we find that the thermal susceptibility can be tuned with the magnetic field angle and can even cancel out, unveiling a sweet spot where the hole spin is rendered immune to thermal effects. These findings bear important implications for optimizing spin-based quantum processors fidelity.