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

Chow, Matthew N. H.

Published Nov 13, 2024• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

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.

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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.
The central challenge of quantum computing is implementing high-fidelity quantum gates at scale. However, many existing approaches to qubit control suffer from a scale-performance trade-off, impeding progress towards the creation of useful devices. Here, we present a vision for an electronically controlled trapped-ion quantum computer that alleviates this bottleneck. Our architecture utilizes shared current-carrying traces and local tuning electrodes in a microfabricated chip to perform quantum gates with low noise and crosstalk regardless of device size. To verify our approach, we experimentally demonstrate low-noise site-selective single- and two-qubit gates in a seven-zone ion trap. We implement electronic single-qubit gates with fidelities ≥ 99.99912 ( 8 ) % and demonstrate consistent performance with low crosstalk across the device. We also electronically generate two-qubit maximally entangled states with 99.97 ( 1 ) % fidelity and long-term stable performance over continuous system operation. These state-of-the-art results highlight the potential of our all-electronic approach for coherent control of trapped-ion qubits in large-scale quantum computers.
A reliable large-scale quantum computer would be able to solve problems in physics and chemistry exponentially faster than current classical processors. A large-scale quantum device has not been built because quantum systems are naturally sensitive to environmental influences which manifest as errors in memory and operations during computation. For a large-scale device to become a reality, protocols must be developed that reduce the influence of errors during computation in a manner that maintains scalability of the device. This scalability criteria requires the protocols developed to handle errors must be implemented in a way such that the size of the quantum system and number of operations grows in a tractable manner. Furthermore, the sources of errors must be modeled accurately for true assessments of the viability of these protocols. In this dissertation, we present an investigation into methods of performing reliable quantum computation in the presence of errors in small quantum systems (< 50 qubits). These methods should be considered as software primitives used to built reliable large-scale quantum algorithms and quantum memories. These methods occur in two flavors: quantum error correction and fault-tolerant operations. For quantum error correction, we perform assessments of error correction in the presence of error sources indicative of ion trap quantum computers. For fault-tolerant operations, we investigate the quantum resource cost and efficacy of implementing various techniques for performing reliable operations that would allow for a quantum advantange in a large-scale device.
Scaling up controlled quantum systems to involve large numbers of qubits remains one of the outstanding challenges of quantum information science. One path toward scalability is the use of a modular architecture where adjacent qubits may be entangled with applied electromagnetic fields, and remote qubits may be entangled using photon interference. Trapped atomic ion qubits are one of the most promising platforms for scaling up quantum systems by combining long coherence times with high fidelity entangling operations between proximate and remote qubits. In this thesis, I present experimental progress on combining entanglement between remote atomic ions separated by 1 meter with near-eld entanglement between atomic ions in the same ion trap. I describe the experimental improvements to increase the remote entanglement rate by orders of magnitude to nearly 5 per second. This is the first experimental demonstration where the remote entanglement rate exceeds the decoherence rate of the entangled qubits. The flexibility of creating remote entanglement through photon interference is demonstrated by using the interference of distinguishable photons without sacrificing remote entanglement rate or fidelity. Next I describe the use of master clock in combination with a frequency comb to lock the phases of all laser-induced interactions between remote ion traps while removing optical phase stability requirements. The combination of both types of entanglement gates to create a small quantum network are described. Finally, I present ways to mitigate cross talk between photonic and memory qubits by using different trapped ion species. I show preliminary work on performing state detection of nuclear spin 0 ions by using entanglement between atomic ion spin and photon polarization. These control techniques may be important for building a large-scale modular quantum system.
The field of quantum computing has been developing rapidly over the last decades, driven by the belief that quantum computing can provide computational advantage over devices of other computational paradigms. However, the aspect of scaling quantum computing hardware systems to sizes where computational advantage can be achieved remains the cornerstone problem of the field. This thesis constitutes a step in the path towards scalable quantum systems. Specifically, the thesis describes the commissioning and operation of a trapped-ion quantum computing setup with modular design assembled in two 19-inch racks. The setup functions as a standalone device without a need for any special external infrastructure. The setup is capable of operating with 16 qubits in a highly-automated way with the ability to access the setup through a hardware-agnostic high-level interface. Details required for working with a 16-ion chain and the prospects of scaling the system further are discussed throughout the work. The setup's performance is demonstrated via experimental implementation of quantum error correction, a major milestone on the way to scalable and practically-useful quantum computing. Various quantum error correction primitives were performed with logical qubits encoded using color codes. The primitives include encoding of the logical states, direct implementation of logical Clifford gates, and implementation of logical non-Clifford gates via magic state injection and code switching. These results represent one of the first experimental logical-level manipulations with encoded qubits.
Quantum computers open new scientific avenues, from exploring complex quantum mechanical systems to new computational paradigms, but face the fundamental challenge of decoherence. Remarkably, decoherence can be prevented by creating highly entangled states of physical qubits that encode an error-corrected “logical” qubit. This thesis will describe the development of quantum computing with reconfigurable arrays of neutral atoms and their use for quantum processing with logical qubits. Quantum processing in this approach is based on the coherent transport of atoms shuttled by optical tweezers, enabling any-to-any connectivity, high-fidelity programmable logic, and mid-circuit processing within a zoned architecture. Logical qubit processing is greatly facilitated by parallel control and transversal operations, and is used for experiments ranging from entangling logical qubits to their use for precise simulation of quantum scrambling. Core physical mechanisms for achieving deep-circuit, universal algorithms with logical qubits are identified, and these are leveraged into new techniques that greatly reduce overheads for large-scale computation. Finally, applications of quantum processors will be explored via analog and gate-based quantum simulations. These results, alongside other recent advances, herald a transition to error-corrected quantum processing, establishing foundations that can enable future large-scale quantum computers and their useful applications.
For the field of quantum computing and technology to continue its growth and begin to solve truly useful problems, it must overcome the limitations imposed by errors affecting quantum devices. Leading modern devices can be classed as “noisy intermediate-scale quantum” or NISQ devices. These are devices that have not realised fault-tolerance nor utilise error correction, but nonetheless could solve genuinely useful, classically intractable problems. However, the scalability and reliability of current NISQ devices is limited by the impact of errors. This thesis uses the principles of quantum control to work towards improving quantum technology reliability. By characterising the errors affecting a quantum device and tailoring robust, dynamic control solutions, I am able to achieve superior performance in a trapped-ion quantum device compared to its baseline or primitive operation. I begin by characterising our experimental system, a trapped 171Yb+ ion. Following on, I demonstrate three quantum control techniques. First, I work to improve the measurement fidelity of a trapped-ion hyperfine qubit using electron shelving to a metastable level. Second, this work develops and demonstrates an error characterisation tool to diagnose the correlation properties of errors affecting a quantum device. Building from this, I demonstrate the use of dynamically corrected gates to both improve single-qubit gate fidelities and reduce error correlations temporally between gates and spatially between qubits. Finally, I discuss and implement a more robust and flexible two-qubit entangling Mølmer-Sørensen gate using phase modulation of the interaction laser. All of this work adds to the “toolkit” of quantum control and can be used to improve both the reliability of modern device performance -- in particular by reducing susceptibility to noise -- and assist with building up to larger numbers of qubits and gates by tailoring more robust, scalable entangling gates between qubits.