Integrated Photonics for Scalable Ion Traps

Using light for controlling and manipulating isolated microscopic systems is at the foundation of quantum computation and quantum information processing.

Currently, most of the existing experimental setups rely on conventional free-space optics, that are bulky and hardly scalable.  However, recent results suggest that photonic integrated circuits and nanophotonics could allow us to overcome some of the main challenges in these fields, in particular considering the future scaling of quantum systems, which is not only a critical requirement for scientific progress but also for the future commercialization of quantum technologies based on trapped particles.

This series of seminars, jointly organized by the Optica Technical Groups of Integrated Photonics and Optical Cooling and Trapping, will feature three distinguished speakers who will share insights on their progress of using integrated nanophotonic circuits for the trapping and manipulation of neutral atoms, ions and nanoparticles. This week's session will feature a talk from Jonathan Home of ETH Zürich.

Abstract:

Trapped ions are among the most promising paths to realizing quantum computers, having exhibited the highest fidelities and long coherence times. Scaling up will require the adoption of new technologies, and can be facilitated by new approaches.  In particular, the use of integrated optics allows to deliver light in a multiplexed manner to arrays of ions in micro trap arrays. I will describe how we have used integrated optics perform entangling gates and deliver light to multiple zones of an ion trap chip in scalable manner, and give an impression of the new types of control are enabled by this approach. This work has now been extended to waveguide delivery at wavelengths from 375 to 866 nm, using alumina and silicon nitride waveguides. I will also give an outlook to the challenges ahead in the use of integrated waveguide technologies for scaling up trapped ion quantum computers. 

About Our Speakers

Jonathan Home

ETH Zürich

About Jonathan Home

Jonathan Home has been a Professor at the ETH Zürich since 2010, obtaining tenure in 2017. His group focuses on the precision control of trapped atomic ions, focusing on quantum error correction and dissipation, as well as the exploration of novel methods for scaling. Successes of this research have included the first demonstrations of GKP logical qubits and subsequently error correction, repeated rounds of stabilizer measurements with feedback, the first demonstration of two-qubit ion trap gates using chip-delivered integrated optics chips, and a new platform for quantum computing based on microfabricated Penning traps. Jonathan’s work has been recognized by numerous awards, including the Landauer-Bennett award of the APS and the Latsis Prize of ETH Zürich. He is also a Fellow of the APS. Jonathan plays an active role in outreach, and has realized the first museum exhibit worldwide in which visitors can see atoms with the naked eye. He is a TED Fellow and has given talks at both TED and the World Economic Forum.