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Electric field manipulation enhanced by strong spin-orbit coupling: promoting rare-earth ions as qubits

Quantum information processing based on magnetic ions are considered potential candidates for applications because they can be modified and scaled up by a variety of chemical methods. For these systems to achieve individual spin addressability and high energy efficiency, we exploited the electric field as a tool to manipulate their quantum behaviours, functioning via spin-orbit coupling. A Ce:YAG single crystal was employed due to that rare-earth ions have strong spin-orbit coupling and with considerations regarding the dynamics and the symmetry requirements. The Stark effect of the Ce3+ ion was observed and measured. When demonstrated as a quantum phase gate, the electric field manipulation exhibited high efficiency which allowed up to 57 π/2 operations before decoherence with optimized field directions. It was also utilized to carry out quantum bang-bang control, as a method of dynamic decoupling, and the refined Deutsch-Jozsa algorithm. Our experiments highlighted rare-earth ions as potentially applicable qubits since they offer enhanced spin-electric coupling which enables high-efficiency quantum manipulation.