Optically driven self-assembled quantum dots are leading candidates for use in quantum computers because of their potential for high speed gate operations and relatively compact design. In this approach, each dot is charged with a single electron whose spin serves as the quantum bit (qubit). This thesis addresses the need for a universal set of gates to physically implement quantum computing and discusses initial steps toward spin-photon entanglement. Both are addressed through coherent control of the spin state in a magnetic field with optical pulses.;This work experimentally demonstrates coherent rotations of the electron spin. First, the electron spin is rotated at up to 0.5 terahertz about the optical axis by a detuned picosecond optical pulse. The rotation occurs via a nearly resonant stimulated spin-flip Raman process involving a negatively charged exciton (trion). Second, rotation about an orthogonal axis is demonstrated due to electron spin precession about the magnetic field between two detuned optical pulses. The magnitude of the electron g factor is measured to be 0.4, and the rotation speed is 30 gigahertz in a 6.6 Tesla field. Geometric phases are detected in quantum dots for the first time due to cyclic Rabi oscillations driven by a resonant continuous-wave laser. These geometric phases provide another method of spin rotation and can be used in a gate. Any combination of these methods that provides spin rotation about two orthogonal axes can form an arbitrary rotation and together with a phase gate can form any unitary single qubit gate.;Finally, this thesis also presents a detailed experimental procedure for creating a partial entanglement of internal variables within a quantum dot spin-exciton system, as a preliminary step to spin-photon entanglement. It has been proposed that entanglement between non-adjacent qubits in a large qubit network could occur via a photon, fueling research to demonstrate spin-photon entanglement. The experiment proposed here will create the precursor state in 25 picoseconds with a predicted fidelity of 0.985, and the precursor superposition state has a theoretical entropy of entanglement of 0.92.
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