Figure 1. Conceptual diagram of the world’s fastest two-qubit gate. Two atoms captured in optical tweezers (red light) with a separation of a micrometer are manipulated by a ultrafast laser pulse (blue light) shone for only 10 picoseconds. Credit: Dr. Takafumi Tomita (IMS)
- A research team succeeded in executing the world’s fastest two-qubit gate (a fundamental arithmetic element essential for quantum computing) using a completely new method of manipulating, with an ultrafast laser, micrometer-spaced atoms cooled to absolute zero temperature.
- For the past two decades, all quantum computer hardware has been pursuing faster gates to escape the effects of external noise that can degrade computational accuracy.
- Cold-atom-based quantum computers are quickly attracting attention from industry, academia, and government around the world as revolutionary hardware that breaks through some limitations of superconducting and trapped-ion quantum computers, which are currently the most advanced types of quantum computers.
A research group is using atoms cooled to almost absolute zero[1] and trapped in optical tweezers[2] separated by a micron or so (see Figure 1). By manipulating the atoms with a special laser light shone for 10 picoseconds (pico = one trillionth of a second), they succeeded in executing the world’s fastest two-qubit gate,[3] see Figures 1 – 3, a fundamental operation essential for quantum computing[4], which operates in just 6.5 nanoseconds (nano = one billionth of a second). This ultrafast quantum computer,[4] which uses ultrafast lasers to manipulate cold atoms trapped with optical tweezers[2], is expected to be a completely new quantum computer hardware that breaks through the limitations of the superconducting and trapped-ion types currently in development.
The results will be published today (August 8, 2022) in the online edition of the British scientific journal Nature Photonics. The research team is led by graduate student Yeelai Chew, Assistant Professor Sylvain de Léséleuc and Professor Kenji Ohmori at the Institute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences.
Figure 2. Schematic of a quantum bit using Rubidium atoms. Credit: Dr. Takafumi Tomita (IMS)
1 . Research background
1 – 1. Cold-atom based quantum computers:
Cold-atom quantum computers are based on laser cooling and trapping techniques celebrated by the …….