A Shuttle to Quantum Computers.
L. deClercq et al. Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 080502 (2016)
Shuttling ions through laser beams enables scalable quantum logic gates.
In experiments with trapped ions, all basic components needed for large-scale quantum computing have been demonstrated already. The approach faces major challenges, however, when it comes to scaling it up. In a practical quantum computer, a large number of gate operations have to be performed in parallel across an array of traps. Researchers at ETH Zurich might now have found a way how this can be done.
Reporting in Physical Review Letters, the group of Jonathan Home at the Institute for Quantum Electronics describes a scalable approach to performing gates in a multi-zone trap array in parallel. They passed ions through laser beams, thus replacing the standard methods based on pulsed optical fields, which are difficult to scale. The researchers control the gates by scalable micro-electronics, as is also required for quantum communication within the array by ion transport. The new method should therefore serve as a viable approach to simplifying the path to scaling up trapped-ion quantum computing.