Scientists at California Institute of Technology conducted a record-breaking experiment in synchronizing 6,100 atoms in a quantum array. This study could lead to more robust and fault-tolerant quantum computers.
In the experiment, paired neutral atoms were used as qubits in the system (qubits) and quantum calculations were performed while keeping them in a “superposition” state. To achieve this, scientists split the laser beam into 12,000 “laser tweezers,” which together hold 6,100 qubits.
As explained in a new study published in Nature on September 24th, scientists not only set new records for the number of atomic quantum bits placed within a single array, but also extended the length of the “superposition” coherency. This is the time that atoms can be used to calculate and error check quantum computers, extending the time from just a few seconds to 12.6 seconds.
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The research is an important step towards a large-scale quantum computer that can achieve technical feats that go far beyond today’s fastest supercomputers, scientists said in their research. They added that the study is an important milestone in the development of quantum computers using neutral atomic architectures.
This type of qubit is advantageous as it can operate at room temperature. The most common type of qubit is made of superconducting metal, and requires expensive and cumbersome equipment to cool the system to temperatures close to absolute zero.
The path to quantum superiority
It is widely believed that the development of useful quantum computers requires systems with millions of qubits. This is because each functional qubit requires several error-corrected qubits to provide fault tolerance.
Quantum bits are essentially “noisy” and tend to be easily decoherent when faced with external factors. When data is transferred via quantum circuits, this decoherence can distort the data and render it unusable. To counter this noise, scientists need to develop fault tolerance techniques in parallel with qubit expansion methods. This is why there has been a huge amount of research into quantum error correction (QEC) up until now.
Many of today’s systems are thought to be functional, but most do not meet the minimum threshold of utility compared to supercomputers. For example, quantum computers built by IBM, Google and Microsoft have managed to perform better than traditional computers, demonstrating what is often referred to as the “benefits of quantum.”
However, this advantage is primarily limited to custom computational problems designed to showcase the features of a particular architecture and is not a practical problem. Scientists hope that quantum computers will become more useful as the size of quantum computers grows and the errors that occur in qubits are managed better.
“This is an exciting moment for neutral atomic quantum computing,” said Manuel Endless, lead author and professor of physics at California Institute of Technology and the researcher’s lead researcher. “We now have a path to a massive error-correction quantum computer. The basics are in place.”
In their research, researchers said what is more noticeable than the hugeness of qubit arrays is the technology used to make systems scalable. They have fine-tuned previous efforts to achieve roughly 10x improvements in key areas such as consistency, superposition and array size. Compared to previous efforts, it expanded from hundreds of qubits in a single array to over 6,000 while maintaining a 99.98% accuracy.
They also unveiled new techniques to “reciprocate” the array by moving atoms hundreds of micrometers over the array without losing superposition. As development progresses further, they said the use of shuttles could provide a new dimension of immediate error correction.
The team’s next step involves bonding atoms within an array through a state of quantum mechanics known as quantum entanglements, which allows for complete quantum computation. Scientists added that they would like to use entanglement to develop powerful fault tolerance techniques with more accurate error correction. These techniques may prove important to achieve the next milestone on the path to useful and fault-tolerant quantum computers.
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