Single-Molecule Spin–Photon Interface for Quantum Communication | Nature

This source is a bibliography of research on optically addressable spins, molecular qubits and spin–photon interfaces for quantum technologies. It spans foundational work on single-molecule spectroscopy and photon antibunching, advances in diamond and semiconductor spin systems, emerging organic and carbene molecular qubits, quantum memories and networks, and the computational methods used to model these systems. The references cover publications from 1963 through 2026, including work on coherent control, optical readout, quantum communication and materials challenges.

Quantum technologies and solid-state spins

1. Awschalom, D. D., Hanson, R., Wrachtrup, J. & Zhou, B. B. “Quantum technologies with optically interfaced solid-state spins.” Nature Photonics 12, 516–527 (2018). Article
2. Hepp, C. et al. “Electronic structure of the silicon vacancy color center in diamond.” Physical Review Letters 112, 036405 (2014). Article
3. Rodgers, L. V. H. et al. “Materials challenges for quantum technologies based on color centers in diamond.” MRS Bulletin 46, 623–633 (2021). Article
4. Ruf, M. et al. “Optically coherent nitrogen-vacancy centers in micrometer-thin etched diamond membranes.” Nano Letters 19, 3987–3992 (2019). Article
5. Anderson, C. P. et al. “Electrical and optical control of single spins integrated in scalable semiconductor devices.” Science 366, 1225–1230 (2019). Article
6. van de Stolpe, G. L. et al. “Check-probe spectroscopy of lifetime-limited emitters in bulk-grown silicon carbide.” npj Quantum Information 11, 31 (2025). Article
7. Pingault, B. et al. “Coherent control of the silicon-vacancy spin in diamond.” Nature Communications 8, 15579 (2017). Article
8. Sukachev, D. D. et al. “Silicon-vacancy spin qubit in diamond: a quantum memory exceeding 10 ms with single-shot state readout.” Physical Review Letters 119, 223602 (2017). Article
9. Bradley, C. E. et al. “A ten-qubit solid-state spin register with quantum memory up to one minute.” Physical Review X 9, 031045 (2019).
10. de Lange, G., Wang, Z. H., Ristè, D., Dobrovitski, V. V. & Hanson, R. “Universal dynamical decoupling of a single solid-state spin from a spin bath.” Science 330, 60–63 (2010). Article

Molecular quantum systems and optical interfaces

1. Wasielewski, M. R. et al. “Exploiting chemistry and molecular systems for quantum information science.” Nature Reviews Chemistry 4, 490–504 (2020). Article
2. Toninelli, C. et al. “Single organic molecules for photonic quantum technologies.” Nature Materials 20, 1615–1628 (2021). Article
3. Wrigge, G., Gerhardt, I., Hwang, J., Zumofen, G. & Sandoghdar, V. “Efficient coupling of photons to a single molecule and the observation of its resonance fluorescence.” Nature Physics 4, 60–66 (2008). Article
4. Wang, D. et al. “Coherent coupling of a single molecule to a scanning Fabry-Perot microcavity.” Physical Review X 7, 021014 (2017).
5. Bayliss, S. L. et al. “Enhancing spin coherence in optically addressable molecular qubits through host-matrix control.” Physical Review X 12, 031028 (2022).
6. Lombardi, P. et al. “Photostable molecules on chip: integrated sources of nonclassical light.” ACS Photonics 5, 126–132 (2018). Article
7. Huang, T. et al. “On-chip quantum interference of indistinguishable single photons from integrated independent molecules.” Nature Nanotechnology 20, 1748–1756 (2025). Article
8. Lange, C. M. et al. “A hybrid molecular–nanophotonic platform for on-chip cavity quantum electrodynamics and collective interactions.” ACS Nano 20, 9867–9874 (2026). Article
9. Wrachtrup, J., von Borczyskowski, C., Bernard, J., Orrit, M. & Brown, R. “Optical detection of magnetic resonance in a single molecule.” Nature 363, 244–245 (1993). Article
10. Bayliss, S. L. et al. “Optically addressable molecular spins for quantum information processing.” Science 370, 1309–1312 (2020). Article
11. Serrano, D. et al. “Ultra-narrow optical linewidths in rare-earth molecular crystals.” Nature 603, 241–246 (2022). Article
12. Weiss, L. R. et al. “A high-resolution molecular spin-photon interface at telecommunication wavelengths.” Science 390, 76–81 (2025). Article
13. Vasilenko, E. “Optically detected nuclear magnetic resonance of coherent spins in a molecular complex.” Nature Materials 25, 1154–1159 (2026). Article

Organic radicals and carbene molecular qubits

1. Gorgon, S. et al. “Reversible spin-optical interface in luminescent organic radicals.” Nature 620, 538–544 (2023). Article
2. Kopp, S. M. et al. “Luminescent organic triplet diradicals as optically addressable molecular qubits.” Journal of the American Chemical Society 146, 27935–27945 (2024). Article
3. Chowdhury, R. et al. “Bright triplet and bright charge-separated singlet excitons in organic diradicals enable optical read-out and writing of spin states.” Nature Chemistry 17, 1410–1417 (2025). Article
4. Roggors, S. et al. “Optically detected magnetic resonance on carbene molecular qubits.” Journal of the American Chemical Society 147, 36383–36392 (2025). Article
5. Poh, Y. R., Chen, X., Cheng, H.-P. & Yuen-Zhou, J. “Electron sextets as optically addressable molecular qubits: triplet carbenes.” Journal of the American Chemical Society 147, 22529–22541 (2025). Article
6. Poh, Y. R., Chen, X., Cheng, H.-P. & Yuen-Zhou, J. “Quantifying the spin-optical properties of bent π-carbene molecular qubits.” Preprint at ChemRxiv (2026). Preprint
7. El-Sayed, M. A. “Spin–orbit coupling and the radiationless processes in nitrogen heterocyclics.” Journal of Chemical Physics 38, 2834–2838 (1963). Article
8. Anderson, R. J. M. & Kohler, B. E. “Electron nuclear double resonance of triplet diphenylmethylene in P 2₁ benzophenone: conformation and spin distribution.” Journal of Chemical Physics 65, 2451–2459 (1976). Article
9. Graham, D. J. & Wang, C.-L. “A magnetic field study of excited triplet diphenylmethylene.” Journal of Chemical Physics 85, 4441–4445 (1986). Article
10. Haider, K. W., Platz, M. S., Despres, A., Lejeune, V. & Migirdicyan, E. “Triplet-triplet fluorescence and spin polarization: diphenylcarbene and dibenzocycloheptadienylidene.” Journal of Chemical Physics 94, 142–147 (1990). Article
11. Wasserman, E. et al. “Electron paramagnetic resonance of 9,9’-dianthrylmethylene. Linear aromatic ground-state triplet methylene.” Journal of the American Chemical Society 93, 6335–6337 (1971). Article
12. Graham, D. J. & Lin, T.-S. “High-resolution absorption spectra of diphenylnmethylenes.” Chemical Physics 73, 411–420 (1982). Article
13. Kozankiewicz, B. et al. “Zero-field splitting of the electronic ground and lowest excited triplet states of 2,2-dinaphthylcarbene in n-hexane at 1.7 K.” Journal of Physical Chemistry A 103, 3155–3162 (1999). Article
14. Bertrand, G. Carbene Chemistry: From Fleeting Intermediates to Powerful Reagents, 1st edn (CRC Press, 2002).
15. Hirai, K., Itoh, T. & Tomioka, H. “Persistent triplet carbenes.” Chemical Reviews 109, 3275–3332 (2009). Article

Single-molecule spectroscopy and photon statistics

1. Kummer, S., Basché, T. & Bräuchle, C. “Terrylene in p-terphenyl: a novel single crystalline system for single molecule spectroscopy at low temperatures.” Chemical Physics Letters 229, 309–316 (1994). Article
2. Ambrose, W. P., Basché, T. & Moerner, W. E. “Detection and spectroscopy of single pentacene molecules in a p-terphenyl crystal by means of fluorescence excitation.” Journal of Chemical Physics 95, 7150–7163 (1991). Article
3. Brouwer, A. C. J., Köhler, J., Groenen, E. J. J. & Schmidt, J. “¹³C isotope effects for pentacene in p-terphenyl: high-resolution spectroscopy and single-spin detection.” Journal of Chemical Physics 105, 2212–2222 (1996). Article
4. Moerner, W. E. & Kador, L. “Optical detection and spectroscopy of single molecules in a solid.” Physical Review Letters 62, 2535–2538 (1989). Article
5. Orrit, M. & Bernard, J. “Single pentacene molecules detected by fluorescence excitation in a p-terphenyl crystal.” Physical Review Letters 65, 2716–2719 (1990). Article
6. Kimble, H. J., Dagenais, M. & Mandel, L. “Photon antibunching in resonance fluorescence.” Physical Review Letters 39, 691–695 (1977). Article
7. Basché, Th., Moerner, W. E., Orrit, M. & Talon, H. “Photon antibunching in the fluorescence of a single dye molecule trapped in a solid.” Physical Review Letters 69, 1516–1519 (1992). Article
8. Brouri, R., Beveratos, A., Poizat, J.-P. & Grangier, P. “Photon antibunching in the fluorescence of individual color centers in diamond.” Optics Letters 25, 1294–1296 (2000). Article
9. Siyushev, P., Stein, G., Wrachtrup, J. & Gerhardt, I. “Molecular photons interfaced with alkali atoms.” Nature 509, 66–70 (2014). Article

Quantum communication and networks

1. Hensen, B. et al. “Loophole-free Bell inequality violation using electron spins separated by 1.3 kilometres.” Nature 526, 682–686 (2015). Article
2. Hermans, S. L. N. et al. “Qubit teleportation between non-neighbouring nodes in a quantum network.” Nature 605, 663–668 (2022). Article
3. Bhaskar, M. K. et al. “Experimental demonstration of memory-enhanced quantum communication.” Nature 580, 60–64 (2020). Article
4. Barrett, S. D. & Kok, P. “Efficient high-fidelity quantum computation using matter qubits and linear optics.” Physical Review A 71, 060310(R) (2005). Article
5. Knaut, C. M. et al. “Entanglement of nanophotonic quantum memory nodes in a telecom network.” Nature 629, 573–578 (2024). Article

Organic semiconductors, molecular aggregates and computational methods

1. Wang, C., Dong, H., Jiang, L. & Hu, W. “Organic semiconductor crystals.” Chemical Society Reviews 47, 422–500 (2018). Article
2. Hestand, N. J. & Spano, F. C. “Expanded theory of H- and J-molecular aggregates: the effects of vibronic coupling and intermolecular charge transfer.” Chemical Reviews 118, 7069–7163 (2018). Article
3. Piteša, T., Alešković, M., Becker, K., Basarić, N. & Došlić, N. “Photoelimination of nitrogen from diazoalkanes: involvement of higher excited singlet states in the carbene formation.” Journal of the American Chemical Society 142, 9718–9724 (2020).
4. Svensson, M. et al. “ONIOM: a multilayered integrated MO + MM method for geometry optimizations and single point energy predictions. A test for Diels-Alder reactions and Pt(P(t-Bu)₃)₂ + H₂ oxidative addition.” Journal of Physical Chemistry 100, 19357–19363 (1996). Article
5. Chung, L. W. et al. “The ONIOM method and its applications.” Chemical Reviews 115, 5678–5796 (2015). Article
6. Neese, F., Wennmohs, F., Becker, U. & Riplinger, C. “The ORCA quantum chemistry program package.” Journal of Chemical Physics 152, 224108 (2020). Article
7. Neese, F. “Software update: the ORCA program system—version 6.0.” WIREs Computational Molecular Science 15, e70019 (2025). Article
8. Brandenburg, J. G., Bannwarth, C., Hansen, A. & Grimme, S. “B97-3c: a revised low-cost variant of the B97-D density functional method.” Journal of Chemical Physics 148, 064104 (2018). Article
9. Weigend, F. & Ahlrichs, R. “Balanced basis sets of split valence, triple zeta valence and quadruple zeta valence quality for H to Rn: design and assessment of accuracy.” Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 7, 3297–3305 (2005). Article
10. Grimme, S., Antony, J., Ehrlich, S. & Krieg, H. “A consistent and accurate ab initio parametrization of density functional dispersion correction (DFT-D) for the 94 elements H-Pu.” Journal of Chemical Physics 132, 154104 (2010). Article
11. Grimme, S., Ehrlich, S. & Goerigk, L. “Effect of the damping function in dispersion corrected density functional theory.” Journal of Computational Chemistry 32, 1456–1465 (2011). Article
12. Weigend, F. “Accurate Coulomb-fitting basis sets for H to Rn.” Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics 8, 1057–1065 (2006). Article
13. Bannwarth, C., Ehlert, S. & Grimme, S. “GFN2-xTB—an accurate and broadly parametrized self-consistent tight-binding quantum chemical method with multipole electrostatics and density-dependent dispersion contributions.” Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation 15, 1652–1671 (2019). Article
14. Becke, A. D. “Density-functional thermochemistry. III. The role of exact exchange.” Journal of Chemical Physics 98, 5648–5652 (1993). Article
15. Lee, C., Yang, W. & Parr, R. G. “Development of the Colle-Salvetti correlation-energy formula into a functional of the electron density.” Physical Review B 37, 785–789 (1988). Article
16. Stephens, P. J., Devlin, F. J., Chabalowski, C. F. & Frisch, M. J. “Ab initio calculation of vibrational absorption and circular dichroism spectra using density functional force fields.” Journal of Physical Chemistry 98, 11623–11627 (1994). Article
17. Caldeweyher, E. et al. “A generally applicable atomic-charge dependent London dispersion correction.” Journal of Chemical Physics 150, 154122 (2019). Article
18. Neese, F. “Efficient and accurate approximations to the molecular spin-orbit coupling operator and their use in molecular g-tensor calculations.” Journal of Chemical Physics 122, 034107 (2005). Article
19. Helmich-Paris, B., de Souza, B., Neese, F. & Izsák, R. “An improved chain of spheres for exchange algorithm.” Journal of Chemical Physics 155, 104109 (2021). Article
20. Roos, B. O., Taylor, P. R. & Sigbahn, P. E. “A complete active space SCF method (CASSCF) using a density matrix formulated super-CI approach.” Chemical Physics 48, 157–173 (1980). Article
21. Lawley, K. P. (ed.) Ab Initio Methods in Quantum Chemistry. Vol. 67 in Advances in Chemical Physics (Wiley, 1987).
22. Roemelt, M. & Neese, F. “Excited states of large open-shell molecules: an efficient, general, and spin-adapted approach based on a restricted open-shell ground state wave function.” Journal of Physical Chemistry A 117, 3069–3083 (2013). Article
23. Angeli, C., Cimiraglia, R., Evangelisti, S., Leininger, T. & Malrieu, J.-P. “Introduction of n-electron valence states for multireference perturbation theory.” Journal of Chemical Physics 114, 10252–10264 (2001). Article
24. Angeli, C., Cimiraglia, R. & Malrieu, J.-P. “n-electron valence state perturbation theory: a spinless formulation and an efficient implementation of the strongly contracted and of the partially contracted variants.” Journal of Chemical Physics 117, 9138–9153 (2002). Article
25. Hellweg, A., Hättig, C., Höfener, S. & Klopper, W. “Optimized accurate auxiliary basis sets for RI-MP2 and RI-CC2 calculations for the atoms Rb to Rn.” Theoretical Chemistry Accounts 117, 587–597 (2007). Article
26. Neese, F., Wennmohs, F., Hansen, A. & Becker, U. “Efficient, approximate and parallel Hartree–Fock and hybrid DFT calculations. A ‘chain-of-spheres’ algorithm for the Hartree–Fock exchange.” Chemical Physics 356, 98–109 (2009). Article

Spin coherence and relaxation

1. Mims, W. B. “Phase memory in electron spin echoes, lattice relaxation effects in CaWO₄: Er, Ce, Mn.” Physical Review 168, 370–389 (1968). Article
2. Chin, A. W., Huelga, S. F. & Plenio, M. B. “Quantum metrology in non-Markovian environments.” Physical Review Letters 109, 233601 (2012). Article
3. Arnold, M. et al. “On the effect of donor strength on the photoluminescence performance in mono-substituted N-donor triarylmethyl radicals.” Advanced Optical Materials 12, 2400697 (2024). Article
4. Mishra, K., Wu, Z., Erker, C., Müllen, K. & Basché, T. “Suppressing non-radiative relaxation in a NIR single photon emitter: the impact of deuteration and temperature.” Chemical Science 16, 90–97 (2025). Article

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