Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

arXiv:0907.1865 · Science

Complete Methods Set for Scalable Ion Trap Quantum Information Processing

Jonathan Home, David Hanneke, John D. Jost, Jason Amini, Dietrich G. Leibfried, David J. Wineland

Published Aug 7, 2009• 283 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Large-scale quantum information processors must be able to transport and maintain quantum information and repeatedly perform logical operations. Here, we show a combination of all of the fundamental elements required to perform scalable quantum computing through the use of qubits stored in the internal states of trapped atomic ions. We quantified the repeatability of a multiple-qubit operation and observed no loss of performance despite qubit transport over macroscopic distances. Key to these results is the use of different pairs of 9Be+ hyperfine states for robust qubit storage, readout, and gates, and simultaneous trapping of 24Mg+ "re-cooling" ions along with the qubit ions.

DOI
10.1126/science.1177077

Related papers

Trapped Atomic Ions and Quantum Information Processing

David J. Wineland, Dietrich G. Leibfried, Jonas Bergquist +19 more

The basic requirements for quantum computing and quantum simulation (single‐ and multi‐qubit gates, long memory times, etc.) have been demonstrated in separate experiments on trapped ions. Construction of a large‐scale information processor will require synthesis of these elements and implementation of high‐fidelity operations on a very large number of qubits. This is still well in the future. NIST and other groups are addressing part of the scaling issue by trying to fabricate multi‐zone arrays of traps that would allow highly‐parallel and scalable processing. In the near term, some simple quantum processing protocols are being used to aid in quantum metrology, such as in atomic clocks. As the number of qubits increases, Schrödinger’s cat paradox and the measurement problem in quantum mechanics become more apparent; with luck, trapped ion systems might be able to shed light on these fundamental issues.

AIP conference proceedings•Jan 1, 2006•1 citation

Scalable Methods for Performant Control of Hyperfine Qubits in Atoms and Ions

Chow, Matthew N. H.

Qubits encoded within internal energy levels of atoms and ions have been used to demonstrate high-performance primitives of quantum computing for small numbers of qubits. Yet, the path to achieving sufficient size and fidelity for useful fault-tolerant quantum computation remains daunting. In this dissertation, I present several techniques I developed as steps along this path. These results include high-fidelity, low-loss detection for alkali atoms in optical tweezers, crosstalk-mitigated parallel one-qubit gates, robust entangling gates on trapped ions, and leakage-to-erasure conversion for non-destructive detection of atom loss errors. Through this collection of techniques, I have sought to make full use of the underlying atomic physics to alleviate technical burden in scaling up to large systems while maintaining or improving on qubit control fidelity. I emphasize that all these results are achieved with low technical overhead, allowing for direct implementation in systems at scale.

•Nov 13, 2024•0 citations

Integrated optical multi-ion quantum logic

Karan K. Mehta, Chi Zhang, Maciej Malinowski +3 more

Abstract Practical and useful quantum information processing requires substantial improvements with respect to current systems, both in the error rates of basic operations and in scale. The fundamental qualities of individual trapped-ion1 qubits are promising for long-term systems2, but the optics involved in their precise control are a barrier to scaling3. Planar-fabricated optics integrated within ion-trap devices can make such systems simultaneously more robust and parallelizable, as suggested by previous work with single ions4. Here we use scalable optics co-fabricated with a surface-electrode ion trap to achieve high-fidelity multi-ion quantum logic gates, which are often the limiting elements in building up the precise, large-scale entanglement that is essential to quantum computation. Light is efficiently delivered to a trap chip in a cryogenic environment via direct fibre coupling on multiple channels, eliminating the need for beam alignment into vacuum systems and cryostats and lending robustness to vibrations and beam-pointing drifts. This allows us to perform ground-state laser cooling of ion motion and to implement gates generating two-ion entangled states with fidelities greater than 99.3(2) per cent. This work demonstrates hardware that reduces noise and drifts in sensitive quantum logic, and simultaneously offers a route to practical parallelization for high-fidelity quantum processors5. Similar devices may also find applications in atom- and ion-based quantum sensing and timekeeping6.

•Jan 1, 2020•249 citations

The Trap Technique

Daniel Stick, Jonathan D. Stern, Christopher R. Monroe

A full-scale quantum computer would work like the standard desktop computer, in that it would have a place to store data, a place where a program manipulates the data, and interconnections to move the data from one to the other. In the computer you are using now, bits of data - stored as quantity of charge or its absence - are transferred from memory to a processor in the form of levels of voltage. At the processor the computer's program determines which logic operations the bits will be subjected to. Once the logic operations are completed, the bits are converted to amounts of charge and stored in memory again. Similarly, in an ion-trap computer, stored qubits would be called from a storage trap to a logic trap, the kind we've been building so far. The two traps would be connected by a long trap that acts like an interconnect or a data bus. It sounds simple, but such a structure would have to be repeated and connected many dozens of times on the same chip to handle the number of ions we'd need. Therefore, a quantum computer equivalent of very-large-scale integration would be required to handle the control circuitry just to move the ions around. The small-scale quantum algorithms that scientists are running today and plan to run in the near future will almost certainly lead to insights that could make full-scale quantum computing, if not easy, at least more tractable.

IEEE Spectrum•Aug 1, 2007•3 citations

Transport of Trapped-ion Qubits in a Scalable Architecture

R. B. Blakestad, C. Ospelkaus, Aaron P. VanDevender +4 more

Trapped-ion qubits can be transported through a two-dimensional trap array, while maintaining the ions near the motional ground-state. This helps demonstrate the viability of large-scale quantum processor architectures using trapped-ions.

Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics•Jan 1, 2012•0 citations

Quantum information processing with two trapped cadmium ions.

Patricia J. Lee

Quantum information processing combines information theory with laws of quantum mechanics to provide an interesting new study that promises significant technological advances in the field of computation. The quest for a physical quantum information processor not only tests the limits of quantum mechanics but also motivates the development of new control techniques for quantum systems. This thesis documents the implementation of the necessary components of a quantum computer in a new atomic ion species, while demonstrating an entangling procedure that is uniquely insensitive to certain types of phase noise. Quantum bits are stored in the ground state hyperfine levels of individual trapped cadmium ions, and the collective vibration of the ions in the trap potential form a quantum databus through which information can be transferred. Quantum state measurements and initialization processes are accomplished through optical pumping, and quantum logic operations are performed through interactions with applied electromagnetic fields. The spin-dependent force, which is the underlying principle of many entanglement schemes for trapped ions, is investigated in detail in a series of Schrodinger cat experiments that generates entangled wavepackets well separated in the momentum-position phase space (alpha = 6). Phase control of the interaction in the gate scheme proposed by Molmer and Sorensen results in phase coherence between single-qubit rotations and a robust two-qubit entangling logic gate that can operate on magnetic-field insensitive clock qubits at finite temperature. The coherence time of the clock qubit (∼ 1s) is long compared to the gate time (∼ 100mus). Finally, quantum state tomography is performed on two ions, featuring a set of universal quantum logic gates that is sufficient for any quantum computation, with an entangling gate fidelity of 0.83. The combination of the tools developed here is sufficient to perform universal quantum computation. With the advent of scalable, multi-zone ion trap structures, the concept of a quantum computation device may become reality in the not so distant future.

•Jan 1, 2006•4 citations
Large-scale quantum information processors must be able to transport and maintain quantum information and repeatedly perform logical operations. Here, we show a combination of all of the fundamental elements required to perform scalable quantum computing through the use of qubits stored in the internal states of trapped atomic ions. We quantified the repeatability of a multiple-qubit operation and observed no loss of performance despite qubit transport over macroscopic distances. Key to these results is the use of different pairs of 9Be+ hyperfine states for robust qubit storage, readout, and gates, and simultaneous trapping of 24Mg+ "re-cooling" ions along with the qubit ions.
The basic requirements for quantum computing and quantum simulation (single‐ and multi‐qubit gates, long memory times, etc.) have been demonstrated in separate experiments on trapped ions. Construction of a large‐scale information processor will require synthesis of these elements and implementation of high‐fidelity operations on a very large number of qubits. This is still well in the future. NIST and other groups are addressing part of the scaling issue by trying to fabricate multi‐zone arrays of traps that would allow highly‐parallel and scalable processing. In the near term, some simple quantum processing protocols are being used to aid in quantum metrology, such as in atomic clocks. As the number of qubits increases, Schrödinger’s cat paradox and the measurement problem in quantum mechanics become more apparent; with luck, trapped ion systems might be able to shed light on these fundamental issues.
Qubits encoded within internal energy levels of atoms and ions have been used to demonstrate high-performance primitives of quantum computing for small numbers of qubits. Yet, the path to achieving sufficient size and fidelity for useful fault-tolerant quantum computation remains daunting. In this dissertation, I present several techniques I developed as steps along this path. These results include high-fidelity, low-loss detection for alkali atoms in optical tweezers, crosstalk-mitigated parallel one-qubit gates, robust entangling gates on trapped ions, and leakage-to-erasure conversion for non-destructive detection of atom loss errors. Through this collection of techniques, I have sought to make full use of the underlying atomic physics to alleviate technical burden in scaling up to large systems while maintaining or improving on qubit control fidelity. I emphasize that all these results are achieved with low technical overhead, allowing for direct implementation in systems at scale.
Abstract Practical and useful quantum information processing requires substantial improvements with respect to current systems, both in the error rates of basic operations and in scale. The fundamental qualities of individual trapped-ion1 qubits are promising for long-term systems2, but the optics involved in their precise control are a barrier to scaling3. Planar-fabricated optics integrated within ion-trap devices can make such systems simultaneously more robust and parallelizable, as suggested by previous work with single ions4. Here we use scalable optics co-fabricated with a surface-electrode ion trap to achieve high-fidelity multi-ion quantum logic gates, which are often the limiting elements in building up the precise, large-scale entanglement that is essential to quantum computation. Light is efficiently delivered to a trap chip in a cryogenic environment via direct fibre coupling on multiple channels, eliminating the need for beam alignment into vacuum systems and cryostats and lending robustness to vibrations and beam-pointing drifts. This allows us to perform ground-state laser cooling of ion motion and to implement gates generating two-ion entangled states with fidelities greater than 99.3(2) per cent. This work demonstrates hardware that reduces noise and drifts in sensitive quantum logic, and simultaneously offers a route to practical parallelization for high-fidelity quantum processors5. Similar devices may also find applications in atom- and ion-based quantum sensing and timekeeping6.
A full-scale quantum computer would work like the standard desktop computer, in that it would have a place to store data, a place where a program manipulates the data, and interconnections to move the data from one to the other. In the computer you are using now, bits of data - stored as quantity of charge or its absence - are transferred from memory to a processor in the form of levels of voltage. At the processor the computer's program determines which logic operations the bits will be subjected to. Once the logic operations are completed, the bits are converted to amounts of charge and stored in memory again. Similarly, in an ion-trap computer, stored qubits would be called from a storage trap to a logic trap, the kind we've been building so far. The two traps would be connected by a long trap that acts like an interconnect or a data bus. It sounds simple, but such a structure would have to be repeated and connected many dozens of times on the same chip to handle the number of ions we'd need. Therefore, a quantum computer equivalent of very-large-scale integration would be required to handle the control circuitry just to move the ions around. The small-scale quantum algorithms that scientists are running today and plan to run in the near future will almost certainly lead to insights that could make full-scale quantum computing, if not easy, at least more tractable.
Quantum information processing combines information theory with laws of quantum mechanics to provide an interesting new study that promises significant technological advances in the field of computation. The quest for a physical quantum information processor not only tests the limits of quantum mechanics but also motivates the development of new control techniques for quantum systems. This thesis documents the implementation of the necessary components of a quantum computer in a new atomic ion species, while demonstrating an entangling procedure that is uniquely insensitive to certain types of phase noise. Quantum bits are stored in the ground state hyperfine levels of individual trapped cadmium ions, and the collective vibration of the ions in the trap potential form a quantum databus through which information can be transferred. Quantum state measurements and initialization processes are accomplished through optical pumping, and quantum logic operations are performed through interactions with applied electromagnetic fields. The spin-dependent force, which is the underlying principle of many entanglement schemes for trapped ions, is investigated in detail in a series of Schrodinger cat experiments that generates entangled wavepackets well separated in the momentum-position phase space (alpha = 6). Phase control of the interaction in the gate scheme proposed by Molmer and Sorensen results in phase coherence between single-qubit rotations and a robust two-qubit entangling logic gate that can operate on magnetic-field insensitive clock qubits at finite temperature. The coherence time of the clock qubit (∼ 1s) is long compared to the gate time (∼ 100mus). Finally, quantum state tomography is performed on two ions, featuring a set of universal quantum logic gates that is sufficient for any quantum computation, with an entangling gate fidelity of 0.83. The combination of the tools developed here is sufficient to perform universal quantum computation. With the advent of scalable, multi-zone ion trap structures, the concept of a quantum computation device may become reality in the not so distant future.