The Excellent Oral Presentation Awards are presented during the closing ceremony of the 12th Asia-Pacific EPR Symposium (APES2022) on November 7th, 2022. CIQTEK is pleased to sponsor this award to scientists who have contributed significantly to electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR or ESR) research. This time, congratulations to Dr. Shen Zhou from the National University of Defense Technology, Dr. Sergey Veber from the International Tomography Center of SB RAS, and Dr. Zhiyuan Zhao from the University of Science and Technology of China for winning the awards.
APES 2022, Webinar, November 4-7, 2022
CIQTEK is happy to sponsor the APES 2022 during November 4-7, 2022. The symposium this year is an online event for international speakers and participants, a new start for Asia-Pacific EPR/ESR Society in the post-epidemic era. The main aims of APES 2022 are to bring together EPR/ESR spectroscopists and to promote and facilitate collaboration among the EPR/ESR community. APES 2022 is intended to stimulate discussions on the forefront of research in all aspects of EPR/ESR ranging from theoretical and experimental advances in CW/Pulsed EPR, high frequency, and high field EPR, ENDOR, PEDLOR/DEER, time-resolved EPR, FMR, MRI, ODMR to applications in medicine, biology, chemistry, materials science and nanotechnology.
On November 5, Dr. Shen Zhou gave a report entitled "Quantum Computing with Multi-levelled Endohedral Fullerene Qudits".
Abstract of the Presentation
Paramagnetic fullerenes, such as fullerenes, have been proposed as a chemical way of implementing quantum information applications, due to their long spin coherence time. Moreover, the S>1/2 system provides a new way of tackling the scalability issue, by directly embedding qudit (d is the dimension of the quantum system). However, the addressability of the individual electron spin levels was not easy. Using molecular engineering, the degeneracy of transitions between different mS states can be lifted by zero-field splitting effects, so that the multiple electron spin transitions are differentiable. We started the multilevel study by observing quantum phase interference in a three leveled spin system of photoexcited C70. Then, the quantum geometric phase manipulation, which has long been proposed for the advantages of error tolerance and gating speed, was implemented in a pure electron spin system using N@C60 derivatives for the first time. To further make use of the abundant energy levels in the paramagnetic fullerene system, the hyperfine interactions were harnessed to perform quantum manipulations in a multi-processing manner via the three parallel channels. When the same operations were applied to the multi-processes, error corrected Deutsch-Jozsa (D-J) algorithm has been achieved. Different operations were also managed to be applied parallelly, demonstrating the multi-task ability of this molecular qudit system.
Biography of Dr. Shen Zhou
My name is Shen Zhou, and I am now an associate professor at the National University of Defense Technology. My research focuses on synthesis and EPR study on molecular qubits, with research grants such as the "Young Scientists Fund" and "General Program" from NSFC, and projects from CMC Science and Technology Commission, etc. I received my Ph.D. from the University of Oxford in 2018, under the supervision of Prof. Andrew Briggs and Prof. Kyriakos Porfyrakis. I started independent research since from 2018 as a lecturer at the National University of Defense Technology. During my lectureship, I joined Professor Song Gao's group at the South China University of Technology as an on-job post-doctor.
The oral presentation will be mainly based on one of my recent papers just accepted by Angew. Chem. In addition to this paper, I also list some of my recent publications for further information. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 144, 8605–8612 (2022), Angew. Chem. 61, e202115263 (2021), J. Am. Chem. Soc. 138 1313-1319 (2016), Phy. Rev. Lett. 119, 140801 (2017), npj Quantum Inform. 7, 32 (2021), Nanoscale Adv., 3, 6048 (2021), Inorg. Chem. Front. 7,3875 (2020)
On November 6, Dr. Sergey Veber gave a presentation entitled "X-band EPR spectrometer based on MW bridge with 300 W solid-state amplifier and AWG unit".
Abstract of the Presentation
Technical advances in modern EPR spectrometers set up the frontiers of EPR-related methodologies and approaches. Considering EPR spectrometers of conventional microwave bands, such as X- and Q-, high-power amplifiers, arbitrary wave generators, and fast digitizers are the essential units required for up-to-date pulse EPR techniques.
Herein we describe an X-band EPR spectrometer constructed in the Magnetic Resonance Laboratory of Biomolecular Systems (NIOCH SB RAS) and featuring all the required equipment to perform state-of-art pulse EPR experiments. Among the general construction of the spectrometer, the scheme of the microwave bridge is considered in detail including a pulse-forming and pulse-monitoring unit, and a low-noise amplifier with a pulse protection circuit. A modular open-source software "Atomize" (https://github.com/Anatoly1010/Atomize) is used to control the spectrometer including AWG and fast digitizer cards featuring high-speed data streaming. A wideband dielectric EPR resonator was developed to fit the requirements for AWG experiments with chirp pulses. The spectrometer is designed to have a high dynamic range, low coherent noise and to capture the direct dimension efficiently. These capabilities were demonstrated with both rectangular and AWG pulse experiments. This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation (grant 14.W03.31.0034)
Biography of Dr. Sergey Veber
Dr. Sergey Veber received his Ph.D. in 2009 in chemical physics from International Tomography Center SB RAS (ITC). Since 2005, he collaborated with the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), the Free University of Berlin, the Max-Planck-Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion, and Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (Germany). He is head of the group of THz-induced processes, at the Laboratory of EPR spectroscopy in ITC, Novosibirsk. He is the author of more than 70 articles. In 2016 he received the Young Investigator Award of the International EPR (ESR) Society for “his considerable contribution to the investigation of novel thermo- and photoswitchable Cu(II)-based magnetoactive compounds by multifrequency EPR”. His research interests are EPR in studies of molecular magnets, phase transitions in magnetoactive compounds, and electronics engineering of EPR-related equipment. His current focus is the use of THz laser radiation applied to molecular magnets and spin qubits, where he is developing EPR-based experimental approaches at the Novosibirsk Free Electron Laser facility.
On November 5, Dr. Zhiyuan Zhao gave a presentation entitled "Surpassing the Energy Resolution Limit with a Single Spin Sensor".
Abstract of the Presentation
The energy resolution limit ER=ℏ (ERL) for magnetic field detection, quantifies the incompatibility between spatial resolution and sensitivity. In the last decades, quantum systems ranging from superconducting quantum interference devices to optically pumped magnetometers and Bose-Einstein condensates, have reached ultra-high magnetic sensitivity. However, no experimental system has hitherto been capable of performing measurements below the ERL. Here we surpass the ERL by 13.8 dB at the nanoscale with single nitrogen-vacancy defects in diamond. The resultant optimal energy resolution is 0.042 ℏ, while the optimal sensitivity is 0.5 nT/√Hz. The achieved sensitivity is substantially enhanced by elaborately integrating with multiple quantum techniques, including real-time feedback initialization, dynamical decoupling, and repetitive readout via quantum logic.
Furthermore, the noise of the NV center with the optimal energy resolution is measured at 21.6 dB below that constrained by the ERL. Our sub-ERL magnetic sensors will shed new light on searching new physics beyond the standard model, microscopic magnetic phenomena in condensed matter physics, and detection of life activities at the sub-cellular scale, all urgently demanding both magnetic sensitivity and spatial resolution.
Biography of Dr. Zhiyuan Zhao
Dr. Zhiyuan Zhao is a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate at CAS Key Laboratory of Microscale Magnetic Resonance, University of Science and Technology of China. His research interests are in nuclear magnetic resonance at the mesoscopic scale, especially in living systems.