Elsevier, Physica C: Superconductivity and its Applications, (357-360), p. 1-6, 2001
DOI: 10.1016/s0921-4534(01)00172-1
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We demonstrated the ®rst electronic control of 1-qubit achieved in a solid-state device by using a submicron electron device called a single-Cooper-pair box. The number of electrons in the box (typically 10 8) is quantized and they form a single macroscopic quantum charge-number state, corresponding to the number of excess electrons in the box. By making all the electrodes superconducting, we can couple two neighboring charge-number states coherently. In this way one can create an arti®cial two-level system. We attached an additional tunneling probe to the box to monitor the probability of one of the two states involved in the coherence. We applied a suciently fast voltage pulse to the gate to create a degenerated charge-number state, so that to force the two states to undergo a quantum oscillation. As a result, we indeed observed the coherent oscillation. This was the ®rst time that the quantum coherent oscillation was observed in a solid-state device whose quantum states involved a macroscopic number of quantum particles. Multiple-pulse experiments were also carried out. Ó 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.