He leads a group that pioneered quantum computing based on electron spins in semiconductor quantum dots, often dubbed “artificial molecules”. Breakthrough results were the ability to trap, initialize, manipulate and read out the spin of single and coupled electrons. “Over time, we get used to working with single electrons, but every time I pause to think what it is we’re doing, I’m really amazed”, he notes. His current interests are to demonstrate that the fundamental process of decoherence can be reserved, thereby protecting fragile quantum bits for as long as is needed, and to simulate complex materials and molecules using an engineered system (a quantum dot array).