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Two qubits for the price of one ion

Nature Physics (2022)Cite this article

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A Publisher Correction to this article was published on 15 August 2022

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Trapped ion quantum computers can use two different kinds of ion to avoid crosstalk between adjacent qubits. Encoding two different qubit types in only one ion species can achieve the same goal while reducing experimental complexity.

Ions of the same species are completely identical by nature. Although this absence of manufacturing variations makes them textbook qubits, it turns into a bottleneck when working with larger groups of qubits because it becomes difficult to control or read out one without affecting others nearby. A solution to this problem is to combine ions of different elements or isotopes that are sufficiently dissimilar from one another to avoid crosstalk issues. However, there is substantial additional overhead in the equipment and calibration needed to operate mixed-species systems. Now, as reported in Nature Physics, Haoxiang Yang and colleagues1 have used a single ion species to encode and coherently convert between two different qubit types, providing a potentially simpler route to eliminating crosstalk.

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Fig. 1: Possible qubit encodings in a single ion species.

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References

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  1. ETH Zurich-PSI Quantum Computing Hub, Laboratory for Nano- and Quantum Technologies, Paul Scherrer Institut, Villigen, Switzerland

    Cornelius Hempel

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  1. Cornelius Hempel
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Correspondence to Cornelius Hempel.

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Hempel, C. Two qubits for the price of one ion. Nat. Phys. (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01713-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41567-022-01713-w

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