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Hole Spin Resilient to Dipole-Induced Thermal Effects

V. Champain1,*, G. Boschetto2, H. Niebojewski2, B. Bertrand2, L. Mauro3, C. Haab1, M. Bassi1,†, V. Schmitt1, X. Jehl1 et al.

S. Zihlmann1, R. Maurand1, Y.-M. Niquet3, C. B. Winkelmann1, S. De Franceschi1, B. Martinez2, and B. Brun1,‡

  • *Present address: ICFO-Institut de Ciencies Fotoniques, The Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, 08860 Castelldefels (Barcelona), Spain.
  • †Present address: QuTech and Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, Delft University of Technology, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands.
  • ‡Contact author: boris.brun-barriere@cea.fr
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PRX Quantum 7, 043005 – Published 7 October, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/py6k-k5zr

Abstract

Recent advances in scaling up spin-based quantum processors have revealed unanticipated issues related to thermal effects. Microwave pulses required to manipulate and read the qubits are found to overheat the spins environment, which unexpectedly induces Larmor frequency shifts, reducing thereby gate fidelities. In this study, we shine light on these elusive thermal effects, by experimentally characterizing the temperature dependence of the Larmor frequency for a single hole spin in silicon. Our results unambiguously reveal an electrical origin underlying the thermal susceptibility, stemming from the spin-orbit-induced electric susceptibility. We perform an accurate modeling of the spin electrostatic environment and gyromagnetic properties, allowing us to pinpoint electric dipoles which unfreeze as the temperature increases, as responsible for these frequency shifts. Surprisingly, we find that the thermal susceptibility can be tuned with the magnetic field angle and can even cancel out, unveiling a sweet-spot where the hole spin is rendered immune to thermal effects. These findings reveal the microscopic origin of longitudinal thermal susceptibility, providing key insight for the design of thermally robust semiconductor qubits.

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Popular Summary

Under an applied magnetic field, spins localized in a semiconductor form natural two-level systems that can be used to encode qubits. In principle, the resonance frequency of these qubits should depend only on the magnetic field and not on temperature. Yet recent experiments with electron spins in silicon revealed a surprising temperature dependence, raising a new challenge for large-scale quantum processors, where heat locally generated by control pulses can become significant. Here we find a similar effect for a hole spin in silicon. Strikingly, the size and even the sign of the thermally induced shift in qubit frequency depend on the magnetic field orientation, pointing to an electrical origin for the effect: as temperature rises, tiny electric dipoles in the surrounding oxide unfreeze, altering the electric-field-dependent qubit frequency. Our study also uncovers the existence of magnetic-field orientations where the hole spin becomes immune to heating. These thermal sweet-spots could help protect future quantum processors from the heat generated during operation.

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PRX Quantum 7, 043005– Published 7 October, 2026
  • Received 25 September 2025
  • Accepted 6 August 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

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