Southwest Quantum Information and Technology

Recent progress in trapped ion quantum information at NIST

Daniel Slichter, National Institute of Standards and Technology

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Qubits formed from the hyperfine states of trapped atomic ions exhibit long coherence times, and can be precisely controlled using lasers and/or microwave fields. However, scaling up to systems with dozens or hundreds of trapped ions presents a variety of experimental challenges. Here, we report progress on several projects for improving and scaling both control and readout of trapped ion qubits, including trap-integrated photon detectors, single-mode fibers for delivery of high-power UV laser light, and all-microwave single-qubit and two-qubit gates. We also describe other current work, including fast ion transport in multi-zone traps, studies of anomalous motional heating from trap surfaces, and the development of a new open-source experimental control platform suitable for complex experiments requiring agile frequency synthesis and many channels of nanosecond-timed digital I/O. This work is supported by IARPA, ONR, and the NIST Quantum Information Program.