Tailor-made Color Centers for Quantum Technologies using Insights from Defect Databases

Color center defects in semiconductor materials are a convenient spin-photon interface and a promising platform for realizing a variety of quantum applications. While many candidate defects in diamond, silicon, and silicon carbide have been used to demonstrate various quantum technologies, their properties are far from ideal, and new candidates need to be identified to continue improving the performance and scale of defect-based quantum devices. The pressing need to identify defects with tailored properties for applications, along with recent advances in synthesis techniques and control over defect formation, have motivated high-throughput calculations of defect properties and the creation of publicly-accessible defect databases. This talk will cover recent progress and challenges for first-principles calculations of color center defects. In particular, it will discuss the insights that can be gained from data mining and machine learning of defect databases, and how these are accelerating computational screening and informing strategies for engineering tailored defects for quantum applications.