Janus H. Wesenberg

Microfabricated surface-electrode ion trap for scalable quantum information processing.

Individual laser-cooled 24Mg+ ions are confined in a linear Paul trap with a novel geometry where gold electrodes are located in a single plane and the ions are trapped 40 microm above this plane. The relatively simple trap design and fabrication procedure are important for large-scale quantum information processing (QIP) using ions. Measured ion motional frequencies are compared to simulations. Measurements of ion recooling after cooling is temporarily suspended yield a heating rate of approximately 5 motional quanta per millisecond for a trap frequency of 2.83 MHz, sufficiently low to be useful for QIP.

Quantum computing with an electron spin ensemble.

We propose to encode a register of quantum bits in different collective electron spin wave excitations in a solid medium. Coupling to spins is enabled by locating them in the vicinity of a superconducting transmission line cavity, and making use of their strong collective coupling to the quantized radiation field. The transformation between different spin waves is achieved by applying gradient magnetic fields across the sample, while a Cooper pair box, resonant with the cavity field, may be used to carry out one- and two-qubit gate operations.

Optimal surface-electrode trap lattices for quantum simulation with trapped ions.

Trapped ions offer long internal state (spin) coherence times and strong interparticle interactions mediated by the Coulomb force. This makes them interesting candidates for quantum simulation of coupled lattices. To this end, it is desirable to be able to trap ions in arbitrary conformations with precisely controlled local potentials. We provide a general method for optimizing periodic planar radio-frequency electrodes for generating ion trapping potentials with specified trap locations and curvatures above the electrode plane. A linear-programming algorithm guarantees globally optimal electrode shapes that require only a single radio-frequency voltage source for operation. The optimization method produces final electrode shapes that are smooth and exhibit low fragmentation. Such characteristics are desirable for practical fabrication of surface-electrode trap lattices.

Scalable designs for quantum computing with rare-earth-ion-doped crystals

Due to inhomogeneous broadening, the absorption lines of rare-earth-ion dopants in crystals are many order of magnitudes wider than the homogeneous linewidths. Several ways have been proposed to use ions with different inhomogeneous shifts as qubit registers, and to perform gate operations between such registers by means of the static dipole coupling between the ions. In this paper we show that in order to implement high-fidelity quantum gate operations by means of the static dipole interaction, we require the participating ions to be strongly coupled, and that the density of such strongly coupled registers in general scales poorly with register size. Although this is critical to previous proposals which rely on a high density of functional registers, we describe architectures and preparation strategies that will allow scalable quantum computers based on rare-earth-ion-doped crystals.

Electrostatics of surface-electrode ion traps

Surface-electrode (SE) rf traps are a promising approach to manufacturing complex ion-trap networks suitable for large-scale quantum information processing. In this paper we present analytical methods for modeling SE traps in the gapless plane approximation, and apply these methods to two particular classes of SE traps. For the SE ring trap we derive analytical expressions for the trap geometry and strength, and also calculate the depth in the absence of control fields. For translationally symmetric multipole configurations (analogs of the linear Paul trap), we derive analytical expressions for electrode geometry and strength. Further, we provide arbitrarily good approximations of the trap depth in the absence of static fields and identify the requirements for obtaining maximal depth. Lastly, we show that the depth of SE multipoles can be greatly influenced by control fields.

Quantum Simulation of the Hexagonal Kitaev Model With Trapped Ions

We present a detailed study of quantum simulations of coupled spin systems in surface-electrode (SE) ion-trap arrays, and illustrate our findings with a proposed implementation of the hexagonal Kitaev model (Kitaev A 2006 Ann. Phys. 321 2). The effective (pseudo)spin interactions making up such quantum simulators are found to be proportional to the dipole-dipole interaction between the trapped ions, and are mediated by motion that can be driven by state-dependent forces. The precise forms of the trapping potentials and the interactions are derived in the presence of an SE and a cover electrode. These results are the starting point to derive an optimized SE geometry for trapping ions in the desired honeycomb lattice of Kitaevs model, where we design the dipole-dipole interactions in a way that allows for coupling all three bond types of the model simultaneously, without the need for time discretization. Finally, we propose a simple wire structure that can be incorporated into a microfabricated chip to generate localized state-dependent forces which drive the couplings prescribed by this particular model; such a wire structure should be adaptable to many other situations.

Scalable arrays of rf Paul traps in degenerate Si

We report techniques for the fabrication of multizone linear radio frequency Paul traps that exploit the machinability and electrical conductivity of degenerate silicon. The approach was tested by trapping and laser cooling M24g+ ions in the two following trap geometries: a single-zone two-layer trap and a multizone surface-electrode trap. From the measured ion motional heating rate we determine an electric field spectral density at the ion’s position of approximately 1×10−10 (V/m)2⋅Hz−1 at ωz/2π=1.125 MHz when the ion lies 40 μm above the trap surface. One application of these devices is controlled manipulation of atomic ion qubits, the basis of one form of quantum information processing.

Spectroscopic properties of inhomogeneously broadened spin ensembles in a cavity

The enhanced collective coupling to weak quantum fields may turn atomic or spin ensembles into an important component in quantum information processing architectures. Inhomogeneous broadening can, however, significantly reduce the coupling and the lifetime of the collective excitation that represent the quantum information. In this paper we show that the width and shape of the inhomogeneous broadening have a striking influence on the dynamics of the cavity-ensemble system and may lead to narrowing of the linewidth of the collective states. We underpin our findings with the examples of a Gaussian and a Lorentzian profile of the inhomogeneity.

Mixed collective states of many spins

Mixed states of samples of spin s particles which are symmetric under permutations of the particles are described in terms of their total collective spin quantum numbers. We use this description to analyze the influence on spin squeezing due to imperfect initial-state preparation.

Robust quantum gates and a bus architecture for quantum computing with rare-earth-ion-doped crystals

We present a composite pulse controlled phase gate which, together with a bus architecture, improves the feasibility of a recent quantum computing proposal based on rare-earth-ion-doped crystals. The proposed gate operation is tolerant to variations between ions of coupling strengths, pulse lengths, and frequency shifts. In the absence of decoherence effects, it achieves worst case fidelities above 0.999 with relative variations in coupling strength as high as 10% and frequency shifts up to several percent of the resonant Rabi frequency of the laser used to implement the gate. We outline an experiment to demonstrate the creation and detection of maximally entangled states in the system.