Semiconductor spin qubits based on spin–orbit states are responsive to electric field excitations, allowing for practical, fast and potentially scalable qubit control. Spin electric susceptibility, however, renders these qubits generally vulnerable to electrical noise, which limits their coherence time. Here we report on a spin–orbit qubit consisting of a single hole electrostatically confined in a natural silicon metal-oxide-semiconductor device. By varying the magnetic field orientation, we reveal the existence of operation sweet spots where the impact of charge noise is minimized while preserving an efficient electric-dipole spin control. We correspondingly observe an extension of the Hahn-echo coherence time up to 88 μs, exceeding by an order of magnitude existing values reported for hole spin qubits, and approaching the state-of-the-art for electron spin qubits with synthetic spin–orbit coupling in isotopically purified silicon. Our finding enhances the prospects of silicon-based hole spin qubits for scalable quantum information processing.

With the development of single-atom transistors, consisting of single dopants, nanofabrication has reached an extreme level of miniaturization. Promising functionalities for future nanoelectronic devices are based on the possibility of coupling several of these dopants to each other. This already allowed to perform spectroscopy of the donor state by d.c. electrical transport. The next step, namely manipulating a single electron over two dopants, remains a challenge. Here we demonstrate electron pumping through two phosphorus donors in series implanted in a silicon nanowire. While quantized pumping is achieved in the low-frequency adiabatic regime, we observe remarkable features at higher frequency when the charge transfer is limited either by the tunnelling rates to the electrodes or between the two donors. The transitions between quantum states are modelled involving a Landau–Zener transition, allowing to reproduce in detail the characteristic signatures observed in the non-adiabatic regime.

A simple and highly reproducible single electron transistor (SET) has been fabricated using gated silicon nanowires. The structure is a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor made on silicon-on-insulator thin films. The channel of the transistor is the Coulomb island at low temperature. Two silicon nitride spacers deposited on each side of the gate create a modulation of doping along the nanowire that creates tunnel barriers. Such barriers are fixed and controlled, like in metallic SETs. The period of the Coulomb oscillations is set by the gate capacitance of the transistor and therefore controlled by lithography. The source and drain capacitances have also been characterized. This design could be used to build more complex SET devices.

The development of quantum electronic devices operating below a few Kelvin degrees is raising the demand for cryogenic complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor electronics (CMOS) to be used as in situ classical control/readout circuitry. Having a minimal spatial separation between quantum and classical hardware is necessary to limit the electrical wiring to room temperature and the associated heat load and parasitic capacitances. Here, we report prototypical demonstrations of hybrid circuits combining silicon quantum dot devices and a classical transimpedance amplifier, which is characterized and then used to measure the current through the quantum dots. The two devices are positioned next to each other at 4.2 K to assess the use of the cryogenic transimpedance amplifier with respect to a room-temperature transimpedance amplifier. A quantum device built on the same substrate as the transimpedance amplifier is characterized down to 10 mK. The transimpedance amplifier is based on commercial 28 nm fully depleted Silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) CMOS. It consists of a two-stage Miller-compensated operational amplifier with a 10 MΩ polysilicon feedback resistor, yielding a gain of $1.1\times {10}^7$ V/A. We show that the transimpedance amplifier operates at 10 mK with only 1 μW of power consumption, low enough to prevent heating. It exhibits linear response up to ±40 nA and a measurement bandwidth of 2.6 kHz, which could be extended to about 200 kHz by design optimization. The realization of custom-made electronics in FDSOI technology for cryogenic operation at any temperature will improve measurement speed and quality inside cryostats with higher bandwidth, lower noise, and higher signal-to-noise ratio.