Martin W. van Mourik

A major hurdle for building a large-scale quantum computer is increasing the number of qubits while maintaining connectivity between them. In trapped-ion devices, this connectivity can be achieved by moving subregisters consisting of a few ions across the processor. Here, we focus on an architecture, which we refer to as the Quantum Spring Array (QSA), that is based on a rectangular two-dimensional lattice of linear strings of ions. Connectivity between adjacent ion strings can be controlled by adjusting their separation. This requires control of trapping potentials along two directions, one along the axis of the ion string and one radial to it. In this work, we investigate key elements of the QSA architecture along both directions: We show that the coupling rate between neighboring lattice sites increases with the number of ions per site and the motion of the coupled system can be resilient to electrical noise, both being key requisites for fast and high-fidelity quantum gate operations. The coherence of the coupling is assessed and an entangling gate between qubits stored in radially separated trapping regions is demonstrated. Moreover, we demonstrate control over radio-frequency signals to adjust the radial separation, and thus the coupling rate, between strings. We further present constructions for the implementation of parallelized, transversal gate operations, and map the QSA architecture to code primitives for fault-tolerant quantum error correction, providing a step towards a quantum processor architecture that is optimized for large-scale operation.

We demonstrate a novel experimental toolset that enables irreversible multi-qubit operations on a quantum platform. To exemplify our approach, we realize two elementary nonunitary operations: the OR and NOR gates. The electronic states of two trapped $^{40}$Ca$^{+}$ ions encode the logical information, and a co-trapped $^{88}$Sr$^{+}$ ion provides the irreversibility of the gate by a dissipation channel through sideband cooling. We measure $87\%$ and $81\%$ success rates for the OR and NOR gates, respectively. The presented methods are a stepping stone towards other nonunitary operations such as in quantum error correction and quantum machine learning.

Quantum information carriers, just like most physical systems, naturally occupy high-dimensional Hilbert spaces. Instead of restricting them to a two-level subspace, these high-dimensional (qudit) quantum systems are emerging as a powerful resource for the next generation of quantum processors. Yet harnessing the potential of these systems requires efficient ways of generating the desired interaction between them. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an implementation of a native two-qudit entangling gate in a trapped-ion qudit system up to dimension $5$. This is achieved by generalizing a recently proposed light-shift gate mechanism to generate genuine qudit entanglement in a single application of the gate. The gate seamlessly adapts to the local dimension of the system with a calibration overhead that is independent of the dimension.

We investigate the energy dynamics of non-crystallized (melted) ions, confined in a Paul trap. The non-periodic Coulomb interaction experienced by melted ions forms a medium for non-conservative energy transfer from the radio-frequency (rf) field to the ions, a process known as rf heating. We study rf heating by analyzing numerical simulations of non-crystallized ion motion in Paul trap potentials, in which the energy of the ions' secular motion changes at discrete intervals, corresponding to ion-ion collisions. The analysis of these collisions is used as a basis to derive a simplified model of rf heating energy dynamics, from which we conclude that the rf heating rate is predominantly dependent on the rf field strength. We confirm the predictability of the model experimentally: Two trapped $^{40}$Ca$^{+}$ ions are deterministically driven to melt, and their fluorescence rate is used to infer the ions' energy. From simulation and experimental results, we generalize which experimental parameters are required for efficient recrystallization of melted trapped ions.

We describe, realize, and experimentally investigate a method to perform physical rotations of ion chains, trapped in a segmented surface Paul trap, as a building block for large scale quantum computational sequences. Control of trapping potentials is achieved by parametrizing electrode voltages in terms of spherical harmonic potentials. Voltage sequences that enable crystal rotations are numerically obtained by optimizing time-dependent ion positions and motional frequencies, taking into account the effect of electrical filters in our set-up. We minimize rotation-induced heating by expanding the sequences into Fourier components, and optimizing the resulting parameters with a machine-learning approach. Optimized sequences rotate $^{40}$Ca$^+$ - $^{40}$Ca$^+$ crystals with axial heating rates of $Δ\bar{n}_{com}=0.6^{(+3)}_{(-2)}$ and $Δ\bar{n}_{str}=3.9(5)$ phonons per rotation for the common and stretch modes, at mode frequencies of 1.24 and 2.15 MHz. Qubit coherence loss is 0.2(2)$\%$ per rotation. We also investigate rotations of mixed species crystals ($^{40}$Ca$^+$ - $^{88}$Sr$^+$) and achieve unity success rate.