Faster and better quantum logic with trapped ions

I will describe recent results from two experiments at Oxford aimed at quantifying and improving the performance of trapped-ion qubits and logic gates. In the first, we measure the performance of an "atomic clock" memory qubit... [ view full abstract ]

I will describe recent results from two experiments at Oxford aimed at quantifying and improving the performance of trapped-ion qubits and logic gates. In the first, we measure the performance of an "atomic clock" memory qubit at error levels relevant to quantum error correction, and show that the memory error remains below 0.1% for more than 100ms, which is around three orders of magnitude longer than gate or measurement times. In the second experiment, we demonstrate more than an order of magnitude improvement in the speed of laser-driven two-qubit logic gates, generating entanglement in times as short as 480ns, slightly below the natural oscillation frequency of an ion in the trap, and comparable with logic speeds in some solid-state platforms.