The subject of this thesis are experimental procedures for preparation, manipulation, and detection of specific quantum states of spin systems in the context of quantum computing. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and electron spin resonance (ESR) methods were used. The systems studied were small molecules in liquid state, small molecules embedded in a liquid crystal matrix, and paramagnetic centers in single crystals. The nuclear 19F spins of 2,3,4-Trifluoroaniline were used as qubits to implement the three-qubit Deutsch-Josza algorithm using high-resolution NMR. A classification of the Deutsch-Josza functions according to the operator representation of the corresponding oracle transformations was given. Different classes of functions may produce full, partial or no entanglement in the output states of the algorithm. This entanglement content is not immediately evident from the output states themselves. A procedure was given for mapping of the output states onto Bell- or GHZ-states by means of local transformations which preserve the entanglement content. A method for the visualization of single-spin unitary transformations was also presented. This visual representation can facilitate analysis and design of shaped rf pulses. For the purpose of quantum computing, it can be useful to suppress couplings between qubits during the application of finite-length single-qubit gates. The feasibility of this idea was demonstrated using small molecules in a liquid crystal matrix. In a series of proof-of-principle experiments, it was shown that the magic-echo sequence can be used to suppress the dipole-dipole coupling between spins and simultaneously selectively address a single spin by a soft rf pulse. The S-bus concept for spin-quantum computing holds some scalability promise and provides a testbed for studies of large, strongly coupled quantum registers. Single-crystal CaF2 weakly doped with Ce was used to implement the concept. The nine 19F nuclear spins adjacent to the paramagnetic Ce-ion serve as qubits while the electron spin plays the role of a quantum bus. The S-bus theory was tested experimentally. Procedures were given for the measurement of parameters characterizing the quantum state of the nuclear spins. An exact numeric treatment of this ten-spin system was done to aid in understanding the experimental findings. For a pair of nuclear spins with negligible direct dipolar coupling, the CNOT operation was implemented. The spin-spin coupling mediated by the bus spin was utilized for that purpose. The four Bell-states of these two distant spins were created. An experiment was performed who's signature allows those four entangled states to be distinguished. The paramagnetic cluster in CaF2:Ce is embedded in an extended network of 19F nuclear spins. This network is a powerful source of decoherence. A number of existing and a newly designed pulse sequence were tested with respect to their ability to suppress decoherence and their aptitude for use in quantum computing.
The subject of this thesis are experimental procedures for preparation, manipulation, and detection of specific quantum states of spin systems in the context of quantum computing. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and electron spin resonance (ESR) methods were used. The systems studied were small molecules in liquid state, small molecules embedded in a liquid crystal matrix, and paramagnetic centers in single crystals. The nuclear 19F spins of 2,3,4-Trifluoroaniline were used as qubits to implement the three-qubit Deutsch-Josza algorithm using high-resolution NMR. A classification of the Deutsch-Josza functions according to the operator representation of the corresponding oracle transformations was given. Different classes of functions may produce full, partial or no entanglement in the output states of the algorithm. This entanglement content is not immediately evident from the output states themselves. A procedure was given for mapping of the output states onto Bell- or GHZ-states by means of local transformations which preserve the entanglement content. A method for the visualization of single-spin unitary transformations was also presented. This visual representation can facilitate analysis and design of shaped rf pulses. For the purpose of quantum computing, it can be useful to suppress couplings between qubits during the application of finite-length single-qubit gates. The feasibility of this idea was demonstrated using small molecules in a liquid crystal matrix. In a series of proof-of-principle experiments, it was shown that the magic-echo sequence can be used to suppress the dipole-dipole coupling between spins and simultaneously selectively address a single spin by a soft rf pulse. The S-bus concept for spin-quantum computing holds some scalability promise and provides a testbed for studies of large, strongly coupled quantum registers. Single-crystal CaF2 weakly doped with Ce was used to implement the concept. The nine 19F nuclear spins adjacent to the paramagnetic Ce-ion serve as qubits while the electron spin plays the role of a quantum bus. The S-bus theory was tested experimentally. Procedures were given for the measurement of parameters characterizing the quantum state of the nuclear spins. An exact numeric treatment of this ten-spin system was done to aid in understanding the experimental findings. For a pair of nuclear spins with negligible direct dipolar coupling, the CNOT operation was implemented. The spin-spin coupling mediated by the bus spin was utilized for that purpose. The four Bell-states of these two distant spins were created. An experiment was performed who's signature allows those four entangled states to be distinguished. The paramagnetic cluster in CaF2:Ce is embedded in an extended network of 19F nuclear spins. This network is a powerful source of decoherence. A number of existing and a newly designed pulse sequence were tested with respect to their ability to suppress decoherence and their aptitude for use in quantum computing.
The enormous theoretical potential of Quantum Information Processing (QIP) is driving the pursuit for its practical realization by various physical techniques. Currently Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) has been the forerunner by demonstrating a majority of quantum algorithms. In NMR, spin systems consisting of coupled nuclear spins are utilized as qubits. In order to carry out QIP, a spin system has to meet two major requirements: (i) qubit addressability and (ii) mutual coupling among the qubits. It has been demonstrated that the magnitude of the mutual coupling among qubits can be increased by orienting the spin-systems in a liquid crystal matrix and utilizing the residual dipolar couplings. While utilizing residual dipolar couplings may be useful to increase the number of qubits, nuclei of same species (homonuclei) might become strongly coupled. In strongly coupled spin-systems, spins loose their individual identity of being qubits. We propose that even such strongly coupled spin-systems can be used for QIP and the qubit-manipulation can be achieved by transition-selective pulses. We demonstrate experimental preparation of pseudopure states, creation of maximally entangled states, implementation logic gates and implementation of Deutsch-Jozsa (DJ) algorithm in strongly coupled 2,3 and 4 spin systems. The energy levels of the strongly coupled 3 and 4 spin systems were obtained by using a Z-COSY experiment.
The goal of this project was to improve our control over nuclear spins in the solid state, and to extend this control to coupled electron-nuclear spins. Our key results are summarized below. 1. We extended the control techniques developed in liquid state NMR quantum information processing to the control of a three-qubit solid state NMR quantum information processor. 2. To explore multi-body spin dynamics and their sensitivity to decoherence, we have measured the decay of NMR multiple quantum coherence intensities in the presence and absence of the dipolar Hamiltonian, in a cubic and a one-dimensional spin system. 3. We also studied the transport of polarization in the one-dimensional fluoroapatite system, both experimentally and theoretically, and created special states in which the polarization is localized to the ends of the chain. This enables both universal Quantum Computing and Quantum Simulation in 1-D systems. 4. We devised a novel scheme for electron-nuclear quantum information processing that exploits the anisotropic hyperfine coupling. This scheme enables universal control over a 1-electron, N-nuclear spin system, addressing only a single electron spin transition. Not having to address the nuclear spins directly significantly speeds up the control. We designed and fabricated a pulsed electron spin resonance spectrometer, along with a cryogenic probe which we used to experimentally implement this scheme on a single crystal sample of irradiated malonic acid. 5. We demonstrated the role of nuclear spin dipolar diffusion in dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) experiments, in dielectric samples with abundant nuclear spins. We achieved a 29Si polarization of 8.3% at 66 GHz and 1.1 K in single crystal P-doped, the highest ever reported, using DNP.
Quantum simulations, where controllable quantum systems are used to simulate other quantum systems, originally proposed by Richard Feynman, are one of the most remarkable applications of quantum information science. Compared to computation, quantum simulations require much less number of qubits for the m to be practical. In the work described in this thesis, we have performed a few quantum simulations of small quantum systems using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance(NMR) techniques. These simulations have been used to experimentally demonstrate the underlying interesting quantum protocols. All the experiments presented have been carried out using liquid-state or liquid crystal NMR. Numerical pulse optimization techniques have been utilized in some of the experiments, to achieve better control over the spin systems.
The first chapter contains “Introduction” to quantum information processing, NMR, and numerical pulse optimization techniques. In chapter 2, we describe quantum simulation of a 3-spin Heisenberg-XY spin chain having only nearest neighbour interactions. Recently, spin chains having pre-engineered short-range interactions have been proposed to efficiently transfer quantum information between different parts of a quantum information processor. Other important proposals involving these spin chains include generating entangled states and universal quantum computation. However, such engineered interactions do not occur naturally in any system. In such a scenario, the experimental viability of these proposals can be tested by simulating the spin chains in other controllable quantum systems. In this work, we first theoretically study the time evolution of bipartite and tripartite entanglement measures for a 3-spin open ended XY spin chain. Then, by simulating the XY interactions in a 3-spin nuclear spin system, we experimentally generate, (i)a bipartite maximally(pseudo-)entangled state(Bell state) between end qubits, and(ii) multipartite(pseudo-)entangled states(Wand GHZ states),starting from separable pseudo-pure states. Bell state has been generated by using only the natural unitary evolution of the XY spin chain. W-state and GHZ-state have been generated by applying a single-qubit rotation to the second qubit, and a global rotation of all the three qubits respectively after the unitary evolution of the spin chain.
In chapter 3, we simulate a 3-spin quantum transverse Ising spin system in a triangular configuration, and show that multipartite quantum correlations can be used to distinguish between the frustrated and non-frustrated regimes in the ground state of this spin system. The ground state of the spin system has been prepared by using adiabatic state preparation method. Gradient ascent pulse engineering technique has been utilized to efficiently realize the adiabatic evolution of the spin system. To analyse the experimental ground state of the system, we employ two different multipartite quantum correlation measures, generated from monogamy studies of bipartite quantum correlations.
Chapter 4 contains a digital…
Quantum computers can potentially solve real and relevant mathematical and physical problems that are intractable using classical machines. However, the experimental realization of quantum computers represents a significant challenge, because several opposing experimental requirements must be met. A set of coupled quantum bits must be manipulated and measured while coherently retaining entangled quantum states. Yet the manipulation and measurement processes almost inevitably lead to the decay of these fragile states.
This thesis work takes significant steps towards building a practical quantum computer using nuclear spins and liquid state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques. I present experimental results for proof of principle of quantum computing in a series of small implementations of quantum algorithms, culminating in the implementation of an adiabatic quantum optimization algorithm. The performance of adiabatic algorithms compared with classical optimization methods is unknown, but small quantum computers could provide crucial insight into answering this question. Furthermore, adiabatic algorithms also shed new light on the usefulness of quantum resources for computational tasks and hence they represent an important class of algorithms.
The second part of this thesis presents several methods developed for improving the control over NMR quantum computing experiments. Even though liquid state NMR quantum computers have well known and accepted scaling limitations, the developed tools are of general use. I will show how several tools are directly transferable to two other implementations of quantum computers; one using optical methods and the other using loops of superconducting material.
This work provides insight into what is needed to build a practical quantum computer, and delivers several tools and techniques that will be useful in future large-scale implementations of quantum computers.
The most significant achievements of this project were: (1) Development and validation of the hardware and software needed to implement "strongly modulating pulses", by which high precision quantum gates can be obtain in realistic systems of up to 12 qubits; (2) A detailed analysis and evaluation of a 3-qubit quantum Fourier transform via full quantum process tomography; (3) An extensive set of mathematical and computational techniques to accomplish these goals, including Hadamard products, the real density matrix, and methods of fitting superoperators to experimental data; (4) Creation of a 3-qubit "noiseless subsystem", of a Bell state on two 2-qubit decoherence-free subspaces (DFS), and the invention of "partial" pseudopure states which will enable us to demonstrate robust methods for controlling multi-DFS-qubit systems by NMR; (5) Implementation of several quantum chaotic maps, and the discovery that these provide a scalable approach to determining the magnitude and kind of errors present in complex quantum computations; (6) The invention of a "spin amplifier", by which entanglement can be used to enable single spin measurement, and a small-scale demonstration by NMR; (7) Experiments demonstrating that the foregoing advances enable implementation of complex entangling unitary and decoherent operations, culminating in creation of a 12-qubit CAT state.
Quantum computing set a goal to harness the quantum laws of physics and create \ncomputers more powerful than ever imagined. Different technologies can be chosen to implement quantum bits (qubits), each with their advantages and drawbacks. The idea of combining different technologies then seems natural in order to come up with an optimal quantum computer. \n \nIn this sense, Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) and Electron Spin Resonance (ESR) seem to be the perfect marriage. Indeed, while electron spins can perform quantum gates within nanoseconds, they have to fight very fast decoherence phenomena, the nuclear spins, on the other hand, require longer electromagnetic pulses to be rotated but can be controlled longer without loss of quantum information. Using electron spins as actuators and nuclear spins as memory then appears as the optimal use of this hybrid system. Another fact accounting for this association is that the control of the system through the electron spin requires techniques very similar to the well-known NMR ones. \n \nThis work focuses on characterizing as precisely as possible the Hamiltonian of a hybrid spin system in a solid-state single crystal, especially the electron-nuclear interactions, to perform high-fidelity control in a home-built pulsed ESR spectrometer. Using this knowledge, we show that we can choose the orientation of the magnetic field with respect to our crystal to obtain optimal experimental conditions. Indeed, with a good knowledge of the Hamiltonian of the system, we want demonstrate high-fidelity quantum control. \n \nThe final aim of this work is to dynamically supply highly polarized ancilla qubits that can be used in a Quantum Error Correction (QEC) experiment by implementing heat bath algorithmic cooling using a cold electron spin bath. This is an important step towards demonstrating the viability of spin systems for building quantum computers.