Quantum Technology:

Putting Weirdness to Use

Shahriyar Baku Engenering

Imanli University
Quantum mechanics
and computing

atom-sized
transistors
molecular-sized
transistors

2025 2040
 “There's Plenty of Room
at the Bottom” (1959)
Richard Feynman

“When we get to the very, very small world – say circuits of

seven atoms - we have a lot of new things that would happen
that represent completely new opportunities for design.
Atoms on a small scale behave like nothing on a large scale,
for they satisfy the laws of quantum mechanics…”
A new science for the 21st Century?

Quantum Information
20 Century
th
Mechanics Theory

21st Century

Quantum Information Science

Computer Science and Information Theory

Charles Babbage (1791-1871)

mechanical difference engine

Alan Turing (1912-1954)

universal computing machines

k
Claude Shannon (1916-2001) H   pi log 2 pi
quantify information: the bit i 1
ENIAC
(1946)
 The first solid-state transistor
(Bardeen, Brattain & Shockley, 1947)
 Quantum Mechanics: A 20th century revolution in physics

• Why doesn’t the electron collapse onto the nucleus of an atom?

• Why are there thermodynamic anomalies in materials at low temperature?
• Why is light emitted at discrete colors?
• ....

Erwin Schrödinger (1887-1961)

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976)

 The Golden Rules
of Quantum Mechanics

Rule #1: Quantum objects are waves and can

be in states of superposition.

“qubit”: |0 and |1

Rule #2: Rule #1 holds as long as you don’t look!

|0 and |1

or
|0 |1

probability p 1-p
 GOOD NEWS…
quantum parallel processing on 2N inputs
Example: N=3 qubits

= a0 |000 + a1|001 + a2 |010 + a3 |011

a4 |100 + a5|101 + a6 |110 + a7 |111 f(x)
N=300 qubits: more information
than particles in the universe!

…BAD NEWS…
Measurement gives random result

e.g.,   |101
f(x)
…GOOD NEWS!
quantum interference

depends on
all inputs
…GOOD NEWS!
quantum interference

quantum depends on
logic gates all inputs

quantum |0  |0 + |1

NOT gate: |1  |1 - |0

quantum |0 |0  |0 |0 e.g., (|0 + |1) |0  |0|0 + |1|1
XOR gate: |0 |1  |0 |1
|1 |0  |1 |1
superposition  entanglement
|1 |1  |1 |0
Quantum State: [0][0] & [1][1]

John Bell (1964)

Any possible “completion” to

quantum mechanics will
violate local realism
just the same
Entanglement: Quantum Coins
Two coins in a
quantum [H][H] & [T][T]
superposition

1 1
Entanglement: Quantum Coins
Two coins in a
quantum [H][H] & [T][T]
superposition

1 1
0 0
Entanglement: Quantum Coins
Two coins in a
quantum [H][H] & [T][T]
superposition

1 1
0 0
0 0
Entanglement: Quantum Coins
Two coins in a
quantum [H][H] & [T][T]
superposition

1 1
0 0
0 0
1 1
Entanglement: Quantum Coins
Two coins in a
quantum [H][H] & [T][T]
superposition

1 1
0 0
0 0
1 1
1 1
Entanglement: Quantum Coins
Two coins in a
quantum [H][H] & [T][T]
superposition

1 1
0 0
0 0
1 1
1 1
1 1
Entanglement: Quantum Coins
Two coins in a
quantum [H][H] & [T][T]
superposition

1 1
0 0
0 0
1 1
1 1
1 1
0 0
. .
. .
. .
Application: quantum cryptographic key distribution

plaintext
+ KEY
ciphertext

ciphertext
KEY +
plaintext
Quantum Superposition

From Taking the Quantum Leap, by Fred Alan Wolf

Quantum Superposition

From Taking the Quantum Leap, by Fred Alan Wolf

Quantum Superposition

From Taking the Quantum Leap, by Fred Alan Wolf

Quantum Entanglement
“Spooky action-at-a-distance”
(A. Einstein)

From Taking the Quantum Leap, by Fred Alan Wolf

Quantum Entanglement
“Spooky action-at-a-distance”
(A. Einstein)

From Taking the Quantum Leap, by Fred Alan Wolf

Quantum Entanglement
“Spooky action-at-a-distance”
(A. Einstein)

From Taking the Quantum Leap, by Fred Alan Wolf

Quantum Entanglement
“Spooky action-at-a-distance”
(A. Einstein)

From Taking the Quantum Leap, by Fred Alan Wolf

David Deutsch
“When a quantum
measurement is made,
the universe bifucates!”

• Many Universes
• Multiverse
• Many Worlds
 David Deutsch (1985)
Peter Shor (1994) fast number factoring N = pq
Lov Grover (1996) fast database search

# articles mentioning “Quantum Information”

or “Quantum Computing”
3000

Nature 2500
Science Quantum
Quantum
Computers
Computers
Phys. Rev. Lett. andComputing
Computing
2000 and
Phys. Rev.
Institute of
Institute of
Computer Science
1500 Computer Science
Russian Academy
Russian Academy
of Science
of Science
1000
ISSN 1607-9817
ISSN 1607-9817

500

0
1990 1995 2000 2005 2010
 P. Shor, SIAM J. Comput. 26, 1474 (1997)
Quantum Factoring A. Ekert and R. Jozsa, Rev. Mod. Phys. 68, 733 (1996)

Look for a joint property of all 2N inputs

e.g.: the periodicity of a function

( 𝑥
)
x 2x 2x (Mod 15)
𝑓 ( 𝑥 ) =sin ⁡ 2 𝜋 p = period 0 1
𝑝 1 2
2 4
𝑥
𝑓 𝑎 ( 𝑥 )=𝑎 (𝑀𝑜𝑑 𝑁 ) r = period (a3 = parameter)
4
8
16
5 32
6 64
7 128
8 256
etc…
A quantum computer can factor numbers
exponentially faster than classical computers
15 = 3  5
38647884621009387621432325631 = ?  ?

application: cryptanalysis (N ~ 10200)

 Error-correction Shannon (1948)

Redundant encoding to protect against (rare) errors

potential error: bit flip

ted
c 0/1 0/1
o te
pr 1/0
un p(error) = p

potential error: bit flip

ted 000/111
000/111
c
o te 010/101 etc..
pr
take majority
2 3
𝑝 (𝑒𝑟𝑟𝑜𝑟 )=3 𝑝 ( 1− 𝑝 )+ 𝑝
2 3
𝑝 → 3 𝑝 ( 1− 𝑝 ) + 𝑝
better off whenever p < 1/2
 Shor (1995)
Quantum error-correction Steane (1996)

P0 C
r=
|0 + |1 C* P1

Decoherence
|0 + |1  /4{ |00000 + |10010 + |01001 + |10100
+ |01010 - |11011 - |00110 - |11000
- |11101 - |00011 - |11110 - |01111
- |10001 - |01100 - |10111 + |00101 } 5-qubit code
corrects all
+ /4{ |11111 + |01101 + |10110 + |01011 1-qubit errors
+ |10101 - |00100 - |11001 - |00111 to first order
- |00010 - |11100 - |00001 - |10000
- |01110 - |10011 - |01000 + |11010 }
Trapped Atomic Ions

Yb+ crystal

~5 mm

C.M. & D. J. Wineland, Sci. Am., 64 (Aug 2008)

R. Blatt & D. J. Wineland, Nature 453, 1008 (2008)
Quantum bit inside an atom:
States of relative electron/nuclear spin

State |
State |
N

N
N
S S
S
N
“Perfect” quantum measurement of a single atom
state | state |

laser laser

atom fluoresces 108 photons/sec atom remains dark

0.2 1
Probability

0 0
0 10 20 30 0 10 20 30
# photons collected in 200ms # photons collected in 200ms

>99% detection efficiency!

Trapped Ion Quantum Computer

Internal states of these ions entangled

Cirac and Zoller, Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 4091 (1995)

 Antiferromagnetic Néel order of N=10 spins
2600 runs, a=1.12
All in state 

All in state 

AFM ground state order 222 events

219 events

441 events out of 2600 = 17%

Prob of any state at random =2 x (1/210) = 0.2%
 (see K. Brown)

a (C.O.M.)
b (stretch)

Mode competition – c (Egyptian)

example: axial modes, N = 4 ions d (stretch-2)

60
mode
Fluorescence counts

b+c

2b,a+c
d

c-a
c
a+b

co
b-a

amplitudes
c-a

b+c
o li
b-a
2a

2b,a+c
a+b
ng
a

40

2a

be
d
carrier
a

am
20 axial modes only c

-15 -10 -5 0 5 10 15
Raman Detuning dR (MHz)
1 mm
 Maryland/LPS
GaAs/AlGaAs

GaTech
Res. Inst.
Al/Si/SiO2

NIST-Boulder
Au/Quartz

Sandia Nat’l Lab: Si/SiO2

 Photonic Quantum Networking

Linking ideal quantum memory (trapped ion) with ideal

quantum communication channel (photon)

optical fiber

trapped
trapped
ions
ions
 le atom
Sing re
he

g le atom
Sin
h e re
Quantum teleportation
of a single atom

unknown qubit
uploaded to
atom #1
| + |
qubit transfered to
atom #2
| & |

S. Olmschenk et al., Science 323, 486 (2009).

 we need and more
more time.. qubits..
Large scale vision (103 – 106 atomic qubits)
 Classical Computer Architecture
• 1 layer of transistors, 9-12 layers of connectors
• Interconnect complexity determines circuit complexity
• Efficient transport of bits in the computer is crucial

ibm.com
A new science for the 21st Century?

Quantum Information
Mechanics 20th Century Theory

21st Century

Quantum Information Science

Physics Electrical Engineering

Chemistry Mathematics
Computer Science Information Theory
Quantum Computing Abyss
state-of-the-art theoretical requirements
experiments for “useful” QC
 20 # quantum bits >1000

<100 # logic gates >109

noise error

?
reduction correction

new efficient
technology algorithms
 Quantum Information Hardware at

Individual atoms and photons Semiconductors

ion traps quantum dots
atoms in optical lattices 2D electron gases
cavity-QED

Other condensed-matter
single atomic impurities in glass
single phosphorus atoms in silicon
Superconductors
Cooper-pair boxes (charge qubits)
rf-SQUIDS (flux qubits)
1947

ENIAC
(1946)
 Richard Feynman (1982)

We have always had a great deal of difficulty in understanding

the world view that quantum mechanics represents…

…Okay, I still get nervous with it…

It has not yet become obvious to me that there is no real

problem. I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect
there’s no real problem, but I’m not sure there’s no real problem.
 N=1028
N=1
 JOINT
QUANTUM www.iontrap.umd.edu
INSTITUTE

Grad Students Postdocs

David Campos Susan Clark (Sandia)
Clay Crocker Wes Campbell (UCLA)
Shantanu Debnath Taeyoung Choi
Caroline Figgatt Chenglin Cao
Dave Hayes (Sydney) Brian Neyenhuis
David Hucul Phil Richerme
Volkan Inlek Grahame Vittorini
Rajibul Islam (Harvard)
Aaron Lee Collaborators
Kale Johnson Luming Duan
Simcha Korenblit Howard Carmichael
Andrew Manning Jim Freericks
Jonathan Mizrahi Alexey Gorshkov
Crystal Senko
Jake Smith
Ken Wright

Undergrads
Daniel Brennan NSA ARO
Geoffrey Ji
Katie Hergenreder