Molecular nanomagnets can be considered as serious candidates for the definition of a scalable and reliable quantum computing technology: information is encoded on their spins and they ensure relaxation and decoherence times sufficiently long for the execution of tens of quantum operations. Among these devices, Cr7Ni supramolecular complexes are extremely of interest since they implement a universal set of quantum gates, made of single-qubit gates and the two-qubit Controlled-phase gate. A model for analyzing Cr7Ni molecules and a potential quantum computer architecture are proposed: starting from the energy parameters required for spin manipulations, these systems have been proved to implement elementary quantum algorithms. Within this paper, two, three and four-qubit systems have been analyzed: the simulation of quantum operations and the analysis of dynamical non-idealities have been done in parallel. Our approach enables the definition of an operating point - in terms of magnetic driving fields and latency - in which the execution of elementary quantum algorithms is characterized by negligible errors. The proposed model has been entirely implemented in MATLAB, thus obtaining a software infrastructure for the analysis of Cr7Ni molecules that can be extended to quantum systems with analogous Hamiltonian and behavior.
Molecular nanomagnets can be considered as serious candidates for the definition of a scalable and reliable quantum computing technology: information is encoded on their spins and they ensure relaxation and decoherence times sufficiently long for the execution of tens of quantum operations. Among these devices, Cr7Ni supramolecular complexes are extremely of interest since they implement a universal set of quantum gates, made of single-qubit gates and the two-qubit Controlled-phase gate. A model for analyzing Cr7Ni molecules and a potential quantum computer architecture are proposed: starting from the energy parameters required for spin manipulations, these systems have been proved to implement elementary quantum algorithms. Within this paper, two, three and four-qubit systems have been analyzed: the simulation of quantum operations and the analysis of dynamical non-idealities have been done in parallel. Our approach enables the definition of an operating point - in terms of magnetic driving fields and latency - in which the execution of elementary quantum algorithms is characterized by negligible errors. The proposed model has been entirely implemented in MATLAB, thus obtaining a software infrastructure for the analysis of Cr7Ni molecules that can be extended to quantum systems with analogous Hamiltonian and behavior.
Molecular nanomagnets are attractive candidate qubits because of their wide inter- and intra-molecular tunability. Uniform magnetic pulses could be exploited to implement one- and two-qubit gates in presence of a properly engineered pattern of interactions, but the synthesis of suitable and potentially scalable supramolecular complexes has proven a very hard task. Indeed, no quantum algorithms have ever been implemented, not even a proof-of-principle two-qubit gate. Here we show that the magnetic couplings in two supramolecular {Cr7Ni}-Ni-{Cr7Ni} assemblies can be chemically engineered to fit the above requisites for conditional gates with no need of local control. Microscopic parameters are determined by a recently developed many-body ab-initio approach and used to simulate quantum gates. We find that these systems are optimal for proof-of-principle two-qubit experiments and can be exploited as building blocks of scalable architectures for quantum simulation.
Molecules are serious candidates for building hardware for quantum computers. They can encode quantum information onto electron or nuclear spins and some of them show important features as the scalability of the number of qubits and a universal set of quantum gates. In this paper we present our advances in the development of a classical simulation infrastructure for molecular Quantum Computing: starting from the definition of simplified models taking into account the main physical features of each analyzed molecule, quantum gates are defined over these models, thus permitting to take into account the real behavior of each technology during the simulation. An interface with a hardware-agnostic description language has been also developed. The knowledge of the behavior of real systems permits to optimize the design of quantum circuits at both physical and compilation levels. Elementary quantum algorithms have been simulated on three different molecular technologies by changing the physical parameters of polarization and manipulation and quantum circuit design strategies. Results confirm the dependency of the fidelity of the results on both levels, thus proving that the choice of optimal operating points and circuit optimization techniques as virtual-Z gates are fundamental for ensuring the execution of quantum circuits with negligible errors.
Molecular nanomagnets (MNMs), molecules containing interacting spins, have been a playground for quantum mechanics. They are characterized by many accessible low-energy levels that can be exploited to store and process quantum information. This naturally opens the possibility of using them as qudits, thus enlarging the tools of quantum logic with respect to qubit-based architectures. These additional degrees of freedom recently prompted the proposal for encoding qubits with embedded quantum error correction (QEC) in single molecules. QEC is the holy grail of quantum computing and this qudit approach could circumvent the large overhead of physical qubits typical of standard multi-qubit codes. Another important strength of the molecular approach is the extremely high degree of control achieved in preparing complex supramolecular structures where individual qudits are linked preserving their individual properties and coherence. This is particularly relevant for building quantum simulators, controllable systems able to mimic the dynamics of other quantum objects. The use of MNMs for quantum information processing is a rapidly evolving field which still requires to be fully experimentally explored. The key issues to be settled are related to scaling up the number of qudits/qubits and their individual addressing. Several promising possibilities are being intensively explored, ranging from the use of single-molecule transistors or superconducting devices to optical readout techniques. Moreover, new tools from chemistry could be also at hand, like the chiral-induced spin selectivity. In this paper, we will review the present status of this interdisciplinary research field, discuss the open challenges and envisioned solution paths which could finally unleash the very large potential of molecular spins for quantum technologies.
A proposal for a magnetic quantum processor that consists of individual molecular spins coupled to superconducting coplanar resonators and transmission lines is carefully examined. We derive a simple magnetic quantum electrodynamics Hamiltonian to describe the underlying physics. It is shown that these hybrid devices can perform arbitrary operations on each spin qubit and induce tunable interactions between any pair of them. The combination of these two operations ensures that the processor can perform universal quantum computations. The feasibility of this proposal is critically discussed using the results of realistic calculations, based on parameters of existing devices and molecular qubits. These results show that the proposal is feasible, provided that molecules with sufficiently long coherence times can be developed and accurately integrated into specific areas of the device. This architecture has an enormous potential for scaling up quantum computation thanks to the microscopic nature of the individual constituents, the molecules, and the possibility of using their internal spin degrees of freedom.
Standard CMOS circuits are expected to be no longer able to satisfy nowadays demand for higher performances and lower power consumption. This commits to look for new solutions. Quantum computation, whose fundamental quantity of information is the qubit, is a thoroughly new way of thinking to electronics. There are at least two main reasons for which quantum computing is expected to broaden computation horizons. First, specific algorithms can be engineered, manipulating the probability amplitudes of different states, to exploit the quantum superposition principle and achieve high parallelism. Second, it is expected to be spontaneously suitable to simulate complex quantum physical systems, as large molecules. Quantum computing requires the cooperation of several scientific fields. The leading idea has been to highlight the operations and algorithms a quantum computer must be able to perform and, then, to propose a hardware solution, providing the rigorous physical treatment mandatory for a deep understanding and for an appropriate modelling, something which is hard to find in nowadays literature. Thus, the first chapters address the quantum algorithms, focusing on Grover's search algorithm and deriving, from fundamentals, the corresponding circuit. The latter is then described in Quantum Assembly (QASM), which can be seen as the quantum equivalent of VHDL, and simulated on IBM Q Experience. The following chapters deal with a possible physical implementation of quantum processors: the encoding of qubits on nuclear spins in diamagnetic molecules. When a static magnetic field is applied to a spin-1/2 nucleus, two well-defined energy eigenstates arise, as a result of the Zeeman effect. Each of them can be associated with a qubit eigenstate. Thanks to nuclear magnetic resonance principles, the probability with which one of the two eigenstates is measured can be handled by the superposition of a radio frequency field at the resonance frequency of the nucleus. This can be interpreted as a rotation of the spin, and so of the qubit, about the RF field and enables the execution of single qubit quantum gates, since they are simple rotations of the state vector. The two-qubit CNOT gate is obtained through the interaction of spins via J-coupling. Considering that these gates constitute a universal set, every quantum algorithm can theoretically be run on an NMR processor. Different nuclei have different resonant frequencies, but the addressing of a specific spin can be achieved also in homonuclear molecules, since the resonant frequency depends also on the nuclear environment (nuclear shielding). While unwanted J-couplings can be removed thanks to refocusing, spin decoherence and relaxation phenomena force an upper limit to the allowed timescale. A main advantage of NMR is that this timescale is long, even at room temperature. Conversely, scalability is still an issue. A simple heteronuclear MATLAB model, based on the relations derived from first principles in the thesis, is proposed to prove the feasibility of NMR quantum processors. The input technological parameters, as chemical shielding and J-coupling, can be computed resorting on ORCA, or obtained from experimental data. The model, able to run a universal set of quantum gates and simple algorithms, can be useful to find an optimal operating point as a compromise between molecule physical properties and the quantities which can be controlled by nowadays NMR instrumentation.
The physical implementation of quantum information processing relies on individual modules-qubits-and operations that modify such modules either individually or in groups-quantum gates. Two examples of gates that entangle pairs of qubits are the controlled NOT-gate (CNOT) gate, which flips the state of one qubit depending on the state of another, and the gate that brings a two-qubit product state into a superposition involving partially swapping the qubit states. Here we show that through supramolecular chemistry a single simple module, molecular {Cr7Ni} rings, which act as the qubits, can be assembled into structures suitable for either the CNOT or gate by choice of linker, and we characterize these structures by electron spin resonance spectroscopy. We introduce two schemes for implementing such gates with these supramolecular assemblies and perform detailed simulations, based on the measured parameters including decoherence, to demonstrate how the gates would operate.