Lachlan M. Oberg

We present an efficient approach to optimising pulse sequences for implementing fast entangling two-qubit gates on trapped ion quantum information processors. We employ a two-phase procedure for optimising gate fidelity, which we demonstrate for multi-ion systems in linear Paul trap and microtrap architectures. The first phase involves a global optimisation over a computationally inexpensive cost function constructed under strong approximations of the gate dynamics. The second phase involves local optimisations that utilise a more precise ODE description of the gate dynamics, which captures the non-linearity of the Coulomb interaction and the effects of finite laser repetition rate. We propose two novel gate schemes that are compatible with this approach, and we demonstrate that they outperform existing schemes in terms of achievable gate speed and fidelity for feasible laser repetition rates. In optimising sub-microsecond gates in microtrap architectures, the proposed schemes achieve orders of magnitude higher fidelities than previous proposals. Finally, we investigate the impact of pulse imperfections on gate fidelity and evaluate error bounds for a range of gate speeds.

RF-induced micromotion in trapped ion systems is typically minimised or circumvented to avoid off-resonant couplings for adiabatic processes such as multi-ion gate operations. Non-adiabatic entangling gates (so-called `fast gates') do not require resolution of specific motional sidebands, and are therefore not limited to timescales longer than the trapping period. We find that fast gates designed for micromotion-free environments have significantly reduced fidelity in the presence of micromotion. We show that when fast gates are designed to account for the RF-induced micromotion, they can, in fact, out-perform fast gates in the absence of micromotion. The state-dependent force due to the laser induces energy shifts that are amplified by the state-independent forces producing the micromotion. This enhancement is present for all trapping parameters and is robust to realistic sources of experimental error. This result paves the way for fast two-qubit entangling gates on scalable 2D architectures, where micromotion is necessarily present on at least one inter-ion axis.