Interference in a Prototype of a Two-Dimensional Ion Trap Array Quantum Simulator

Abstract

Quantum mechanics dominates various effects in modern research from miniaturizing electronics, up to potentially ruling solid-state physics, quantum chemistry and biology 1, 2 . To study these effects experimental quantum systems may provide the only effective access 3, 4 . Seminal progress has been achieved in a variety of physical platforms, 2 highlighted by recent applications 5-8 . Atomic ions are known for their unique controllability and are identical by nature, as evidenced, e.g., by performing among the most precise atomic clocks 9 and providing the basis for one-dimensional simulators 10 . However, controllable, scalable systems of more than one dimension are required to address problems of interest and to reach beyond classical numerics with its powerful approximative methods 1, 4 . Here we show, tunable, coherent couplings and interference in a two-dimensional ion microtrap array, completing the toolbox for a reconfigurable quantum simulator. Previously, couplings 11, 12 and entangling interactions 13 between sites in one-dimensional traps have been realized, while coupling remained elusive in microtrap approaches [14][15][16] . Our architecture is based on well isolatable ions as identical quantum entities hovering above scalable CMOS chips. 15 In contrast to other multi-dimensional approaches 17 , it allows individual control in arbitrary, even non-periodic, lattice structures 18 . Embedded control structures can exploit the long-range Coulomb interaction to configure synthetic, fully connected many-body systems to address multi-dimensional problems 19 .Our approach of a synthetic dense lattice (Fig. 1a) is designed for controlling interactions between tens to hundred sites 15 . To engineer the desired interactions at short and long range within microtrap arrays, we can 1 arXiv:1812.08552v1 [quant-ph]

2D Linear Trap Array for Quantum Information Processing

“…At a reduced distance m, coupling strengths Ω c in the kHz range can be achieved, sufficient for coherent operations. [ 21–24 ] The ability to reduce the trap spacing can now be employed to sequentially realize inter‐site quantum operations such as entangling gates: Once the desired coupling strength is reached, the secular modes are tuned into resonance and the ions' electronic states are entangled under simultaneous irradiation with laser light (see e. g., ref. [23]).…”

Quantum computer with cold ions in the Aubry pinned phase

“…In contrast to optical lattices the radio-frequency (RF) traps provide the potential depth V RF ≈ 10 4 k B Kelvin that is significantly above the estimated Aubry transition potential amplitude [46]. At present there is a significant miniaturization of these RF traps with sizes going down to tens of microns [45,46]. Thus such microtrap linear arrays can model the periodic potential considered here with high amplitudes of periodic potential allowing to place ions in the Aubry pinned phase.…”

“…The proposals to study 2D ion systems [38,44,45] are also facing the problem of understanding of the Aubry transition in 2D. In addition to that the problem of phonon spectrum and properties of phonon modes in 2D is much more involved comparing to 1D case.…”

Engineering of microfabricated ion traps and integration of advanced on-chip features

“…[79] introduced a useful tool for creating geometries required for close lattice sites. Using this tool, lattice geometries have been fabricated with close, inter-site distance and multiple degrees of freedom per site [27], [80]. This tool has also been used to investigate bi-layer ion traps which can be used to achieve stronger coupling between adjacent sites than with lattices fabricated on surface ion traps [81].…”