Building superconducting quantum networks
Speaker
Aziza Almanakly
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Title
"Building superconducting quantum networks"
Abstract
A quantum computer has the potential to unlock unprecedented computational power to tackle problems intractable on conventional computers, with applications in drug discovery, materials science, and optimization. Over the past twenty years, the field of quantum computing has progressed from the investigation of individual quantum systems towards the implementation of many-qubit processors. Quantum computation at scale will likely rely on networks that distribute entanglement via, for example, propagating photons throughout the computer. Systems of superconducting qubits strongly coupled to 1D coplanar waveguides, described by the field known as waveguide quantum electrodynamics (wQED), are a promising platform for such quantum communication networks.
In this talk, we discuss a superconducting module which leverages quantum interference to emit microwave photons on-demand and in a user-specified propagation direction in a waveguide [1]. These microwave photons serve as carriers of quantum information. We then connect two of these modules to a common waveguide to demonstrate directional photon emission and absorption. We use this chiral (directional) quantum interconnect to generate remote entanglement as a resource for distributed quantum
computing [2]. This quantum network architecture enables all-to-all connectivity between non-local processors for modular and extensible quantum computation.
[1] B. Kannan*, A. Almanakly* et al., “On-demand directional microwave photon emission using waveguide quantum electrodynamics,” Nature Physics 19, 394–400 (2023).
[2] A. Almanakly et al., “Deterministic Remote Entanglement using a Chiral Quantum Interconnect.” arXiv:2408.05164 [quant-ph] (2024). Accepted by Nature Physics.
About Speaker
Aziza Almanakly is a PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Her research focuses on engineering and controlling quantum systems of superconducting circuits, with an emphasis on microwave quantum optics and communication. Aziza’s research aims to advance the field of quantum optics in order to expand the potential of quantum information technology.
Aziza’s graduate studies are funded by the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship, the Clare Boothe Luce Fellowship, and the Alan L. McWhorter Fund Fellowship. She received her S.M. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from MIT in 2022 and her B.E. in Electrical Engineering from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art in 2020.