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arXiv:1911.03144 · Physical Review Applied

Hybrid Microwave-Radiation Patterns for High-Fidelity Quantum Gates with Trapped Ions

Íñigo Arrazola, Martin Bodo Plenio, E. Solano, Jorge Casanova

Published Feb 25, 2020• 11 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We present a method that combines continuous and pulsed microwave-radiation patterns to achieve robust interactions among hyperfine trapped ions placed in a magnetic field gradient. More specifically, our scheme displays continuous microwave drivings with modulated phases, phase flips, and $\ensuremath{\pi}$ pulses. This leads to high-fidelity entangling gates that are resilient against magnetic field fluctuations, changes in the microwave amplitudes, and crosstalk effects. Our protocol runs with arbitrary values of microwave power, which includes the technologically relevant case of low microwave intensities. We demonstrate the performance of our method with detailed numerical simulations that take into account the main sources of decoherence.

DOI
10.1103/physrevapplied.13.024068

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We present a method that combines continuous and pulsed microwave-radiation patterns to achieve robust interactions among hyperfine trapped ions placed in a magnetic field gradient. More specifically, our scheme displays continuous microwave drivings with modulated phases, phase flips, and \ensuremathπ\ensuremath{\pi}\ensuremathπ pulses. This leads to high-fidelity entangling gates that are resilient against magnetic field fluctuations, changes in the microwave amplitudes, and crosstalk effects. Our protocol runs with arbitrary values of microwave power, which includes the technologically relevant case of low microwave intensities. We demonstrate the performance of our method with detailed numerical simulations that take into account the main sources of decoherence.
We propose a pulsed dynamical decoupling protocol as the generator of tunable, fast, and robust quantum phase gates between two microwave-driven trapped-ion hyperfine qubits. The protocol consists of sequences of $\ensuremath{\pi}$ pulses acting on ions that are oriented along an externally applied magnetic-field gradient. In contrast to existing approaches, in our design the two vibrational modes of the ion chain cooperate under the influence of the external microwave driving to achieve significantly increased gate speeds. Our scheme is robust against the dominant noise sources, which are errors on the magnetic-field and microwave pulse intensities, as well as motional heating, predicting two-qubit gates with fidelities above 99.9% in tens of microseconds.
Trapped ions, together with superconducting qubits, are one of the two leading hardware platforms for scalable quantum information processing. The development of quantum computers represents a major technological breakthrough comparable to the introduction of classical computing. The benefits of this technology are currently limited by the technical capability to perform high fidelity entangling operations on the qubits. When gate fidelities surpass the fault-tolerance threshold it becomes possible, through error correction, to increase the system size to an arbitrary number of qubits. In this cumulative thesis we address some of the issues in the scalability of the trapped-ion quantum computer based on microwave near-fields. In this approach, gate operations on one or multiple ions are driven by an oscillating magnetic field generated by a current flowing through a conductor. In the first part of this work we discuss the design of traps toward the implementation of large scale systems. We introduce the basic design of a surface-electrode ion trap with embedded microwave conductors. The oscillating magnetic field required to perform the operations is generated by a single optimized conductor. We discuss the simulation and characterization of the magnetic field pattern, which is fixed by the microwave conductor design. In addition, we demonstrate the capability to simulate, fabricate and characterize a multilayer surface ion trap. Multilayer traps are a key aspect for scalability since they are necessary to achieve large system sizes, with many `ion registers', where the registers are interconnected by physically transporting ions between them. In the second part of this thesis we demonstrate the implementation of a two-qubit entangling gate and we explore the possibilities offered by quantum control methods to improve its fidelity. We perform an entangling gate on two 9Be+ ions and measure a Bell state fidelity of 98.2(1.2)%. Error characterization shows that the gate result is limited by technical issues connected to the ions' motional states. To reduce these errors we apply amplitude modulation of the gate microwave drive. After stabilization of the ions' radial modes, we obtain an amplitude modulated gate with infidelity in the 10^-3 range. The result is confirmed by analyzing the data using three different methods. Using additional dynamic decoupling techniques, these results could bring microwave near-field gates past the fault-tolerance threshold.
We propose a σz⊗ σzlaser-free entangling gate which uses the intrinsic J-coupling of ions in a static magnetic gradient. Dephasing of the interaction is suppressed by means of continuous dynamical decoupling using pairs of microwave fields. The gate is virtually insensitive to common amplitude noise of the microwave fields and enables high fidelities despite qubit frequency fluctuations, while the J-coupling interaction's inherent robustness to motional decoherence is retained. Errors far below the fault-tolerant threshold can be achieved at high initial temperatures, negating the requirement of sideband cooling below the Doppler temperature. By adjusting the powers of the continuous microwave fields, the J-coupling interaction can be tuned and can be used to implement parallel entangling gates within an ion chain.
We present a general theory for laser-free entangling gates with trapped-ion hyperfine qubits, using either static or oscillating magnetic-field gradients combined with a pair of uniform microwave fields symmetrically detuned about the qubit frequency. By transforming into a 'bichromatic' interaction picture, we show that either or geometric phase gates can be performed. The gate basis is determined by selecting the microwave detuning. The driving parameters can be tuned to provide intrinsic dynamical decoupling from qubit frequency fluctuations. The gates can be implemented in a novel manner which eases experimental constraints. We present numerical simulations of gate fidelities assuming realistic parameters.
We propose a σ z ⊗ σ z laser-free entangling gate which uses the intrinsic J -coupling of ions in a static magnetic gradient. Dephasing of the interaction is suppressed by means of continuous dynamical decoupling using pairs of microwave fields. The gate is virtually insensitive to common amplitude noise of the microwave fields and enables high fidelities despite qubit frequency fluctuations, while the J -coupling interaction's inherent robustness to motional decoherence is retained. Errors far below the fault-tolerant threshold can be achieved at high initial temperatures, negating the requirement of sideband cooling below the Doppler temperature. By adjusting the powers of the continuous microwave fields, the J -coupling interaction can be tuned and can be used to implement parallel entangling gates within an ion chain.
Microwave trapped-ion quantum logic gates avoid spontaneous emission as a fundamental source of decoherence. However, microwave two-qubit gates are still slower than laser-induced gates and hence more sensitive to fluctuations and noise of the motional mode frequency. We propose and implement amplitude-shaped gate drives to obtain resilience to such frequency changes without increasing the pulse energy per gate operation. We demonstrate the resilience by noise injection during a two-qubit entangling gate with ^{9}Be^{+} ion qubits. In the absence of injected noise, amplitude modulation gives an operation infidelity in the 10^{-3} range.