High-fidelity laser-free universal control of trapped ion qubits

Area of Science:

• Quantum Information Science
• Atomic Physics
• Quantum Computing

Background:

• Universal control of multiple qubits is essential for quantum computing, simulation, and networking.
• Trapped atomic ions offer high-fidelity qubit operations but existing universal control methods have limitations.
• Laser-free methods promise scalability but have historically lagged in performance.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate high-fidelity, laser-free universal control of trapped ion qubits.
• To develop a robust method for entangling qubits using magnetic fields and microwaves.
• To enable scalable and integrated trapped-ion quantum processors.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a scheme combining radiofrequency magnetic field gradients and microwave magnetic fields.
• Created symmetric and antisymmetric maximally entangled states of two trapped-ion qubits.
• Corrected fidelities for initialization error.

Main Results:

• Achieved high-fidelity laser-free universal control of two trapped-ion qubits.
• Demonstrated entanglement fidelities of [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] for symmetric and antisymmetric states, respectively.
• The developed scheme is robust against decoherence and applicable to various ion species.

Conclusions:

• This laser-free approach offers a scalable pathway for universal control in trapped-ion quantum processors.
• Integration with on-chip photonics and detectors can lead to fully chip-integrated quantum computing.
• The method has the potential for simultaneous operations on multiple ion pairs without increased complexity.