Investigating the vibro-elastic dispersion relations of architected materials presents a significant challenge due to the complex interplay between the material’s microstructure, inherent physical properties, and wave propagation characteristics. Leveraging on the rapidly growing power of quantum computing, we employ quantum algorithms that are tailored to Noisy Intermediate-scale Quantum (NISQ) specifications to calculate band structures of elastic waves. We demonstrate predictions of dispersion bands with the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) algorithm for selected architected materials. This research prepares the metamaterial research community for the upcoming era of quantum computing.
Investigating the vibro-elastic dispersion relations of architected materials presents a significant challenge due to the complex interplay between the material’s microstructure, inherent physical properties, and wave propagation characteristics. Leveraging on the rapidly growing power of quantum computing, we employ quantum algorithms that are tailored to Noisy Intermediate-scale Quantum (NISQ) specifications to calculate band structures of elastic waves. We demonstrate predictions of dispersion bands with the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) algorithm for selected architected materials. This research prepares the metamaterial research community for the upcoming era of quantum computing.
Abstract Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) and its extension, Variational Quantum Deflation (VQD), have emerged as promising algorithms for computing ground and excited state energy eigenvalues of Hamiltonians, particularly in quantum physics, chemistry, and materials science. Recently, the VQE and VQD algorithms were implemented to calculate the electronic band structure described by the tight-binding Hamiltonian. Despite their success for simple models, scalability remains a challenge due to the need for a large number of circuit executions, limited qubit coherence times, and low gate fidelities. In this work, we implemented the VQE and VQD algorithms for tight-binding models of diamond and zincblende crystal structures (Sn, C, Si, Ge, AlP, AlAs, AlSb, and GaP) using a quantum computer simulator. We investigate the scalability challenges, focusing on the significant overhead caused by a large number of quantum circuit executions required to find the energy eigenvalues. Our analysis highlights the substantial amount of both measurement and optimization overheads in VQD, particularly as the number of excited states increases. Based on our findings, we critically discuss the implications of implementing VQD on current noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices.
This paper presents a novel algorithm for predicting material properties based on quantum simulation. The core idea is to leverage the capabilities of quantum computers to simulate the quantum behavior of materials, thereby accurately predicting their physical and chemical characteristics. This approach addresses limitations of classical computational methods, particularly when dealing with complex quantum systems and multi-scale phenomena. The algorithm utilizes quantum algorithms, such as the Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) and Quantum Phase Estimation (QPE), to solve the Schrödinger equation for the target material. The simulation results are then processed to extract and predict relevant material properties. This work demonstrates a pathway towards a more precise and efficient method for materials discovery and design, offering significant potential in various fields including materials science, chemistry, and physics. The key innovation lies in the direct application of quantum simulation to material property prediction, moving beyond approximations inherent in classical methods.
Quantum computers have the potential to deliver speed-ups for solving certain important problems that are intractable for classical counterparts, making them a promising avenue for advancing modern computation. However, many quantum algorithms require deep quantum circuits, which are challenging to implement on current noisy devices. To address this limitation, variational quantum algorithms (VQAs) have been actively developed, enabling practical quantum computing in the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era. Among them, the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) stands out as a leading approach for solving problems in quantum chemistry, many-body physics, and even integer factorization. The VQE algorithm can be implemented on various quantum hardware platforms, including photonic systems, quantum dots, trapped ions, neutral atoms, and superconducting circuits. In particular, photonic platforms offer several advantages: they operate at room temperature, exhibit low decoherence, and support multiple degrees of freedom, making them suitable for scalable, high-dimensional quantum computation. Here we present methodologies for realizing VQE on photonic systems, highlighting their potential for practical quantum computing. We first provide a theoretical overview of the VQE framework, focusing on the procedure for variationally estimating ground state energies. We then explore how photonic systems can implement these processes, showing that a wide variety of problems can be addressed using either multiple qubit states or a single qudit state.
Over the last decade, researchers have been working to improve a crucial aspect of quantum computing to predict Hamiltonian energy of solids. Quantum algorithms such as Variational Quantum Eigensolver (VQE) and Variational Quantum Deflation (VQD) have been used to study the molecular systems. However, there is growing interest in adapting and applying these methods to periodic solid-state materials. In this work, we have integrated first-principles density functional theory with VQE and VQD algorithms and utilizing the Wannier Tight-Binding Hamiltonian (WTBH) method to predict the electronic characteristics of solids. We demonstrate that VQE and VQD algorithms can be used to accurately predict electronic characteristics in a variety of multi-component prototype solid-state materials such as - Silicon (semiconductor), Gold (metallic), Boron Nitrile (insulator), Graphene (semi-metal). Efficient SU2 performs well among all the predefined ansatz used in the study. COBYLA is the fastest optimizer among the classical optimizers with minimum number of iterations for convergence. Results of noise models help to understand the band structure when calculated on real quantum hardware. As quantum hardware advances, our method might be a starting point for using quantum computers to study materials and could help make material discovery more automatic in the future.
Quasiparticle band structures are fundamental for understanding strongly correlated electron systems. While solving these structures accurately on classical computers is challenging, quantum computing offers a promising alternative. Specifically, the quantum subspace expansion (QSE) method, combined with the variational quantum eigensolver (VQE), provides a quantum algorithm for calculating quasiparticle band structures. However, optimizing the variational parameters in VQE becomes increasingly difficult as the system size grows, due to device noise, statistical noise, and the barren plateau problem. To address these challenges, we propose a hybrid approach that combines QSE with the quantum-selected configuration interaction (QSCI) method for calculating quasiparticle band structures. QSCI may leverage the VQE ansatz as an input state but, unlike the standard VQE, it does not require full optimization of the variational parameters, making it more scalable for larger quantum systems. Based on this approach, we demonstrate the quantum computation of the quasiparticle band structure of a silicon using 16 qubits on an IBM quantum processor.
This work addresses the critical challenge of excited-state preparation for semiconductor band structure calculations. We introduce a variational adiabatic eigensolver (VAE) protocol that combines adiabatic evolution with variational optimization to prepare high-fidelity eigenstates on noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices. Applying a momentum-space truncation, we accurately compute the electronic band structure of silicon -- an idealized infinite periodic system -- using only a modest number of qubits. Our approach employs multi-qubit parameterized circuits and a phase-based loss function, overcoming limitations of conventional methods. These limitations include the circuit-construction difficulty in traditional adiabatic approaches and the reduced accuracy of variational quantum eigensolvers for excited states. Through rigorous numerical simulation and experimental implementation on a superconducting quantum processor, we successfully prepare silicon's valence-band and conduction-band eigenstates. Single-shot readout yields state fidelities exceeding 96%, and the measured energy expectations agree with theoretical band energies within 0.5 eV. Further refinement via single-frequency oscillation fitting reduces the energy deviation to below 0.01 eV. This framework provides a robust and practical pathway for precisely determining electronic structures in quantum materials.