A high-fidelity quantum matter-link between ion-trap microchip modules

Area of Science:

• Quantum Information Science
• Atomic Physics
• Computer Engineering

Background:

• Scalability is crucial for large-scale quantum computers (QCs).
• Trapped-ion quantum computing often uses the quantum charge-coupled device (QCCD) architecture.
• Current QCCD modules have limited qubit capacity due to chip size, necessitating modular designs.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate a quantum matter-link for transferring ion qubits between adjacent quantum computing modules.
• To enable modular quantum computing architectures for enhanced scalability.
• To facilitate the development of fault-tolerant, utility-scale quantum computation.

Main Methods:

• Development and implementation of a quantum matter-link for ion qubit transport.
• Experimental transfer of ion qubits between adjacent quantum computing modules.
• Measurement of ion transport rate and infidelity (ion loss).
• Assessment of the impact of the quantum matter-link on qubit phase coherence.

Main Results:

• Successful demonstration of ion qubit transfer between adjacent QC modules.
• Achieved an ion transport rate of 2424 s^-1.
• Infidelity associated with ion loss during transport was below 7 × 10^-8.
• The quantum matter-link did not measurably impact qubit phase coherence.

Conclusions:

• The demonstrated quantum matter-link is a practical mechanism for interconnecting QCCD devices.
• This technology is essential for building modular quantum computers.
• The findings pave the way for fault-tolerant, utility-scale quantum computation through modularity.