Two-dimensional semiconductors pave the way towards dopant-based quantum computing

Since the proposal in 1998 to build a quantum computer using dopants in silicon as qubits, much progress has been made in the nanofabrication of semiconductors and the control of charge and spins in single dopants. However, an important problem remains unsolved, namely the control over exchange interactions and tunneling between two donors, which presents a peculiar oscillatory behavior as the dopants relative positions vary at the scale of the lattice parameter. Such behavior is due to the valley degeneracy in the conduction band of silicon, and does not occur when the conduction-band edge is at k = 0. We investigate the possibility of circumventing this problem by using two-dimensional (2D) materials as hosts. Dopants in 2D systems are more tightly bound and potentially easier to position and manipulate. Moreover, many of them present the conduction band minimum at k = 0, thus no exchange or tunnel coupling oscillations. Considering the properties of currently available 2D semiconductor materials, we access the feasibility of such a proposal in terms of quantum manipulability of isolated dopants (for single qubit operations) and dopant pairs (for two-qubit operations). Our results indicate that a wide variety of 2D materials may perform at least as well as, and possibly better, than the currently studied bulk host materials for donor qubits.