An FPGA-Based Hardware Platform for the Control of Spin-Based Quantum Systems

This paper reports the development of a highly efficient, flexible hardware platform, which is suitable for the control of spin-based quantum systems including quantum computation and quantum metrology. A two-channel arbitrary waveform generator (AWG), an eight-channel pulse/sequence generator, a two-channel analog-to-digital converter (ADC), and a two-channel high-speed time-to-digital converter (TDC) are fully integrated on a printed circuit board (PCB). The AWG has a 1-GSa/s sampling rate and a 16-bit amplitude resolution. The pulse/sequence generator can continuously output pulse/sequence signals with a 50-ps time resolution and a dynamic range from 5 ns to 2 s. The ADC provides a 1-GSa/s sampling rate and a 12-bit amplitude resolution for analog signal acquisition. The TDC provides a 6-ps time resolution and a maximum sampling frequency of 125 MHz. All these modules are realized utilizing a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). Customized data calculation modules are also implemented with the FPGA logic. The hardware was tested and implemented in a pulsed electron spin resonance (ESR) spectrometer and an optically detected magnetic resonance (ODMR) spectrometer.