This thesis describes experimental demonstrations of high-fidelity readout of trapped ion quantum bits ("qubits") for quantum information processing. We present direct single-shot measurement of an "optical" qubit stored in a single calcium-40 ion by the process of resonance fluorescence with a fidelity of 99.991(1)% (surpassing the level necessary for fault-tolerant quantum computation). A time-resolved maximum likelihood method is used to discriminate efficiently between the two qubit states based on photon-counting information, even in the presence of qubit decay from one state to the other. It also screens out errors due to cosmic ray events in the detector, a phenomenon investigated in this work. An adaptive method allows the 99.99% level to be reached in 145us average detection time. The readout fidelity is asymmetric: 99.9998% is possible for the "bright" qubit state, while retaining 99.98% for the "dark" state. This asymmetry could be exploited in quantum error correction (by encoding the "no-error" syndrome of the ancilla qubits in the "bright" state), as could the likelihood values computed (which quantify confidence in the measurement outcome). We then extend the work to parallel readout of a four-ion string using a CCD camera and achieve the same 99.99% net fidelity, limited by qubit decay in the 400us exposure time. The behaviour of the camera is characterised by fitting experimental data with a model. The additional readout error due to cross-talk between ion images on the CCD is measured in an experiment designed to remove the effect of qubit decay; a spatial maximum likelihood technique is used to reduce this error to only 0.2(1)x10^{-4} per qubit, despite the presence of ~4% optical cross-talk between neighbouring qubits. Studies of the cross-talk indicate that the readout method would scale with negligible loss of fidelity to parallel readout of ~10,000 qubits with a readout time of ~3us per qubit. Monte-Carlo simulations of the readout process are presented for comparison with experimental data; these are also used to explore the parameter space associated with fluorescence detection and to optimise experimental and analysis parameters. Applications of the analysis methods to readout of other atomic and solid-state qubits are discussed.

The design, construction and characterisation of a novel, arrayed, open-access optical microcavity is described. Included in this thesis are the precise fabrication details, making use of the focused ion beam. A technique for analysing and optimising the microcavities constructed, making use of an atomic force microscope is also included. Results from the optical characterisation of the fabricated microcavities are presented, including quality factors of around 104, and fitnesses of around 400. The optical analysis then progressed onto coupling colloidal semiconductor nanocrystals to the microcavity modes. This yielded room temperature Purcell enhancements, single particle sensing, and also allowed for the characterisation of a second iteration of cavities. This improved set was shown to achieve fitnesses in excess of 1800 and quality factors with a lower limit of 15000. The optical identification of single NV centres in nanodiamond is discussed, along with the development of an optical apparatus to couple them to microcavities at cryogenic temperatures. Finally several results from finite difference time domain simulations will be presented, showing ultimate mode volumes of less than 0.5 cubic wavelengths are possible for this approach.

Submitted by Eunice Novais (enovais@uepg.br) on 2018-03-13T19:32:04Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Adriane C silva Leal.pdf: 12455813 bytes, checksum: 4943d9492ef5280324df4aba4d508c4e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-13T19:32:04Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 811 bytes, checksum: e39d27027a6cc9cb039ad269a5db8e34 (MD5) Adriane C silva Leal.pdf: 12455813 bytes, checksum: 4943d9492ef5280324df4aba4d508c4e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-19 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / O principal objetivo deste trabalho é estudar o jogo da Batalha dos Sexos na versão quântica, para dois jogadores Alice e Bob. Uma análise teórica é fundamentada aplicando o protocolo elaborado por Eisert et al., no qual se aplicam propriedades advindas de emaranhamento de estratégias. Nesse sentido, é possível demonstrar que o emaranhamento otimizou os equilíbrios do jogo para Alice e Bob. Para o caso em que os jogadores escolhem o perfil de operadores de estratégias quânticas UA ^ UB 8 ou UA ; 38 ; ^ UB 0; 3 8 , o dilema pode ser resolvido. Por meio dos resultados teóricos uma proposta de implementação experimental do jogo na condição de máximo emaranhamento foi sugerida via a técnica de Ressonância Magnética Nuclear. / The main objective of this work is to study the game of the Battle of the Sexes in the quantum version, for two players Alice and Bob. A theoretical analysis is substantiated applying the protocol elaborated by Eisert et al., in which apply properties oficial entangled strategies. In this sense, it is possible to demonstrate that the entanglement optimized the equilibria of the game. For the case where the players choose the profile of quantum strategies operators ( ^ UA 0; 8 ; ^ UB 0; 8 ) or ( ^ UA 0; 3 8 ; ^ UB 0; 3 8 ) the dilemma can be solved. By means of the theoretical results a proposal of experimental implementation of the game in the condition of maximum entanglement is purposed by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance technique.

[Mathematical symbols can be only approximated here. For the correct display see the Abstract in the PDF files linked below] This work has demonstrated that hyperfine decoherence times sufficiently long for QIP and quantum optics applications are achievable in rare earth ion centres. Prior to this work there were several QIP proposals using rare earth hyperfine states for long term coherent storage of optical interactions [1, 2, 3]. The very long T_1 (~weeks [4]) observed for rare-earth hyperfine transitions appears promising but hyperfine T_2s were only a few ms, comparable to rare earth optical transitions and therefore the usefulness of such proposals was doubtful. ¶ This work demonstrated an increase in hyperfine T_2 by a factor of 7 × 10^4 compared to the previously reported hyperfine T_2 for Pr^[3+]:Y_2SiO_5 through the application of static and dynamic magnetic field techniques. This increase in T_2 makes previous QIP proposals useful and provides the first solid state optically active Lamda system with very long hyperfine T_2 for quantum optics applications. ¶ The first technique employed the conventional wisdom of applying a small static magnetic field to minimise the superhyperfine interaction [5, 6, 7], as studied in chapter 4. This resulted in hyperfine transition T_2 an order of magnitude larger than the T_2 of optical transitions, ranging fro 5 to 10 ms. The increase in T_2 was not sufficient and consequently other approaches were required. ¶ Development of the critical point technique during this work was crucial to achieving further gains in T_2. The critical point technique is the application of a static magnetic field such that the Zeeman shift of the hyperfine transition of interest has no first order component, thereby nulling decohering magnetic interactions to first order. This technique also represents a global minimum for back action of the Y spin bath due to a change in the Pr spin state, allowing the assumption that the Pr ion is surrounded by a thermal bath. The critical point technique resulted in a dramatic increase of the hyperfine transition T_2 from ~10 ms to 860 ms. ¶ Satisfied that the optimal static magnetic field configuration for increasing T_2 had been achieved, dynamic magnetic field techniques, driving either the system of interest or spin bath were investigated. These techniques are broadly classed as Dynamic Decoherence Control (DDC) in the QIP community. The first DDC technique investigated was driving the Pr ion using a CPMG or Bang Bang decoupling pulse sequence. This significantly extended T_2 from 0.86 s to 70 s. This decoupling strategy has been extensively discussed for correcting phase errors in quantum computers [8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15], with this work being the first application to solid state systems. ¶ Magic Angle Line Narrowing was used to investigate driving the spin bath to increase T_2. This experiment resulted in T_2 increasing from 0.84 s to 1.12 s. Both dynamic techniques introduce a periodic condition on when QIP operation can be performed without the qubits participating in the operation accumulating phase errors relative to the qubits not involved in the operation. ¶ Without using the critical point technique Dynamic Decoherence Control techniques such as the Bang Bang decoupling sequence and MALN are not useful due to the sensitivity of the Pr ion to magnetic field fluctuations. Critical point and DDC techniques are mutually beneficial since the critical point is most effective at removing high frequency perturbations while DDC techniques remove the low frequency perturbations. A further benefit of using the critical point technique is it allows changing the coupling to the spin bath without changing the spin bath dynamics. This was useful for discerning whether the limits are inherent to the DDC technique or are due to experimental limitations. ¶ Solid state systems exhibiting long T_2 are typically very specialised systems, such as 29Si dopants in an isotopically pure 28Si and therefore spin free host lattice [16]. These systems rely on on the purity of their environment to achieve long T_2. Despite possessing a long T_2, the spin system remain inherently sensitive to magnetic field fluctuations. In contrast, this work has demonstrated that decoherence times, sufficiently long to rival any solid state system [16], are achievable when the spin of interest is surrounded by a concentrated spin bath. Using the critical point technique results in a hyperfine state that is inherently insensitive to small magnetic field perturbations and therefore more robust for QIP applications.

Inorganic macrocycles have stimulated interest in recent years for their magnetic properties, their associated host-guest chemistry and their aesthetically appealing structures. These characteristics have led to suggestions that they could be exploited for the purposes of ion recognition, catalysis, as single molecule magnets, MRI agents, antibacterial agents and as part of larger architectures in a molecular machine. This thesis explores the properties of a group of chromium(III) macrocycles, with functionality tailored towards different pursuits. Firstly the magnetic properties of a newly synthesised family of ring dimers are investigated. The nature of magnetic exchange within each ring leads to a net electronic spin which, it has been proposed, could represent a quantum binary digit within a quantum information processing system. By linking together pairs of rings, the degree of inter ring communication can be determined. Such interactions are important for the correlation of spin as initiation of quantum entanglement, a pre-requisite for quantum computing. The rings can also act as fluoro-metallocrowns, hosting the molecule which templated their formation. A range of rings with different guests are synthesised and their solid and solution state structures are explored. On templating about bulky dialkyl amines hybrid organic-inorganic rotaxanes are formed where the guest is fixed. In contrast when using small amines and alkali metals, exchange of guests is possible. The dynamics of all of these systems are investigated with proton NMR, quite remarkable for such highly paramagnetic complexes.

Residual dipolar couplings can be used to increase the number of qubits for quantum information processing. We have used molecules containing 3, 5 and 8 spins oriented in a liquid crystal matrix, and exploited the residual dipolar coupling to demonstrate quantum information processing in them. Transition assignment is performed using HET-Z-COSY experiment and qubit addressability is achieved by transition selective pulses. It is expected that using this protocol higher qubits can be achieved. For the implementations reported in this work, evolution under the internal Hamiltonian was not explored. It is however interesting to investigate how effectively the evolution under internal Hamiltonian can be manipulated to implement quantum algorithms in these systems. Recently an approach has been reported in this direction, where a new method of preparing pseudopure states in oriented systems by exciting selected multiple quantum using evolution under effective dipolar Hamiltonian, has been demonstrated [24].

We experimentally demonstrate time-frequency entangled photons with comb-like spectra via both bulk optical crystals and on-chip microring resonators and explore their characterization in both time and frequency domain using quantum state manipulation techniques. Our characterization of these quantum frequency combs involves the use of unbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometers and electro-optic modulators for manipulation in time- and frequency-domain, respectively. By creating indistinguishable superposition states using these techniques, we are able to interfere states from various time- and frequency-bins, consequently proving time- and frequency-bin en-tanglement. Furthermore, our time-domain manipulations reveal pair-wise continuous time-energy entanglement that spans multiple frequency bins, while our utilization of electro-optic modulators to verify high-dimensional frequency-bin entanglement constitutes the proof of this phenomenon for a spontaneous four-wave mixing pro-cess. By doing so, we show the potential of these quantum frequency combs for high-dimensional quantum computing with frequency-encoded quantum states, as well as fully secure quantum communications via quantum key distribution by per-forming a nonlocal dispersion cancellation experiment. To show the potential of our entangled photons source for encoding quantum information in the frequency domain, we carry out a frequency-domain Hong-Ou-Mandel interference experiment by implementing a frequency beam splitter. Lastly, we use the high-dimensionality of our time-frequency entangled source in both time and frequency domain to implement deterministic high-dimensional controlled quantum gates, with the quantum information encoded in both the time and frequency degrees of freedom of a single photon. This novel demonstration of deterministic high-dimensional quantum gates paves the way for scalable optical quantum computation, as quantum circuits can be implemented with fewer resources and high success probability using this scheme.<div><br></div><div> </div>

No description available.

L'informatique quantique exploite les phénomènes de la théorie quantique pour le traitement de l'information, tandis que l'apprentissage automatique s'intéresse aux algorithmes qui peuvent s'améliorer en fonction des expériences passées. L'informatique quantique a produit des algorithmes qui dépassent de loin les capacités des ordinateurs classiques que nous utilisons tous les jours. Cependant, l'identification de nouveaux algorithmes quantiques fut moins prolifique que dans le cas classique. Ces dernières années, on a cherché à combiner l'informatique quantique et l'apprentissage automatique. Le cadre de l'apprentissage automatique a servi à apprendre les paramètres de circuits quantiques paramétrés dans l'espoir d'apprendre à résoudre des problèmes où les phénomènes quantiques peuvent aider grâce au traitement de l'information quantique. L'objectif principal de ce mémoire est de pousser plus loin cette idée d'apprentissage de circuits quantiques et de fonder solidement ses capacités en développant une architecture universelle de circuit quantique paramétré. La première contribution est une évaluation d'algorithmes d'optimisation itératifs actuels pour les circuits quantiques paramétrés en tant que modèles d'apprentissage automatique, ainsi que la présentation d'un algorithme d'optimisation itératif simple, mais robuste. La deuxième contribution est une architecture de circuit quantique dans laquelle une famille de petits circuits avec des connexions arbitraires peut être intégrée. / Quantum information processing leverages the phenomena of quantum theory for information processing, while machine learning concerns itself with algorithms that can improve based on past experiences. Quantum information processing has produced algorithms that go far past the capabilities of the classical computers we use every day. However, the identification of new quantum algorithms has been much slower than during the early days of classical computing. In recent years, there has been a push to combine quantum information processing and machine learning. The framework of machine learning has been used to learn quantum circuits in the hopes of learning to solve problems where quantum phenomena can help through the use of quantum information processing. The main goal of this thesis is to further push this idea of learning quantum circuits and to solidly ground its capabilities by developing a learnable parametrized universal quantum circuit. The first contribution is an assessment of current optimization methods for parametrized quantum circuits as machine learning models. The second contribution is a quantum circuit architecture in which a family of smaller circuits with arbitrary connections can be embedded.

Conventional computing faces a huge technical challenge as traditional transistors will soon reach their size limitations. This will halt progress in reaching faster processing speeds and to overcome this problem, require an entirely new approach. Quantum computing (QC) is a natural solution offering a route to miniaturisation by, for example, storing information in electron or nuclear spin states, whilst harnessing the power of quantum physics to perform certain calculations exponentially faster than its classical counterpart. However, QCs face many difficulties, such as, protecting the quantum-bit (qubit) from the environment and its irreversible loss through the process of decoherence. Hybrid systems provide a route to harnessing the benefits of multiple degrees of freedom through the coherent transfer of quantum information between them. In this thesis I show coherent qubit transfer between electron and nuclear spin states in a ¹⁵N@C₆₀ molecular system (comprising a nitrogen atom encapsulated in a carbon cage) and a solid state system, using phosphorous donors in silicon (Si:P). The propagation uses a series of resonant mi- crowave and radiofrequency pulses and is shown with a two-way fidelity of around 90% for an arbitrary qubit state. The transfer allows quantum information to be held in the nuclear spin for up to 3 orders of magnitude longer than in the electron spin, producing a ¹⁵N@C₆₀ and Si:P ‘quantum memory’ of up to 130 ms and 1.75 s, respectively. I show electron and nuclear spin relaxation (T₁), in both systems, is dominated by a two-phonon process resonant with an excited state, with a constant electron/nuclear T₁ ratio. The thesis further investigates the decoherence and relaxation properties of metal atoms encapsulated in a carbon cage, termed metallofullerenes, discovering that exceptionally long electron spin decoherence times are possible, such that these can be considered a viable QC candidate.