Prof. Cappellaro is the Ford Professor of Engineering at MIT. She is a Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering, a Professor of Physics, and a member of the Research Lab for Electronics, where she leads the Quantum Engineering Group.
Prof. Cappellaro received her Ph.D. from MIT and then joined Harvard University as a postdoctoral associate in the Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, before going back to MIT as a faculty.
The goals of Cappellaro’s research are to design and control quantum devices for quantum simulations, computation, and quantum sensing. She combines theoretical insight into the dynamics of spin qubit systems and expertise in their experimental control to tackle outstanding challenges in developing robust and scalable quantum devices. With collaborators, she pioneered quantum magnetic sensing using electronic spin defects in diamond (the Nitrogen-Vacancy center). Prof. Cappellaro’s work has been published in more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and has been recognized by several awards, including the Young Investigator Award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Merkator Fellowship from the German Science Foundation and the APS fellowship.
The Nitrogen-Vacancy center has recently emerged as a versatile tool for magnetic resonance, quantum optics, precision measurement and quantum information processing. The system comprising the NV electronic spin and close-by nuclear spins (N and 13C) is an excellent candidate for the implementation of small quantum registers capable of simple quantum algorithms with very high fidelities. These quantum registers can then in turn be connected via photon entanglement or direct dipole-dipole coupling to build a large scale quantum information processor.
In recent years metrology and quantum information science have emerged as complementary areas of research. We aim at applying the principles of quantum information science to the development of nano-scale magnetic field sensors based on single spin qubits in diamond. We focus on improving the diamond magnetometer readout, enhancing its coherence, improving its spatial resolution and devising strategies to achieve sensitivity beyond the Heisenberg limit. Ideas and techniques from quantum information science are critical in achieving these goals, from quantum non-demolition measurement to dynamic decoupling and spin squeezing.
A system composed of nuclear or electronic spins could play an important role—complementary to cold atoms and molecules—in the simulation of condensed matter systems. For example, well-known NMR pulse sequences can be used to experimentally simulate the transport of quantum information in room temperature linear chains of spins coupled by the dipolar interaction. We use solid-state NMR to study simulations and information transport in large spin systems. In a complementary approach, we develop photonics structure for distributed quantum architectures.
Prof. Cappellaro is on sabbatical this semester.