Speaker
Description
Trapped-ion quantum computers store information in the internal states of individual ions and use laser pulses to perform logic operations. They offer highly accurate operations and long coherence times, but the speed of operations that entangle pairs of ions remains a limitation. ‘Fast’ gates aim to overcome this by using short laser pulses to control the ions’ motion and generate entanglement. Further speed-ups could be attained by applying these gates to several ion pairs simultaneously, reducing the runtime of quantum algorithms without requiring faster individual gates.
This project investigates whether fast entangling gates can operate in parallel while maintaining high accuracy. The main challenge is cross-talk: because the ions’ motion is coupled, pulses intended to entangle one pair can produce unwanted interactions with another. I use numerical modelling and optimisation to explore how laser pulse sequences can generate the desired entanglement while suppressing these interactions. This involves testing existing gate designs in parallel, refining their pulse timings and searching for new sequences designed specifically for simultaneous operation. By examining how performance depends on gate duration and the separation between ion pairs, this work aims to establish the potential and limitations of parallel fast gates for trapped-ion quantum computing.