Recently, the team of Zhan Mingsheng of the Institute of Precision Measurement of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has realized a two-dimensional heteronuclear single-atom array, and the filling efficiency of the atomic array has reached more than 88%, which has opened up a new way for quantum computing, quantum simulation and ultra-cold molecular array research based on heteronuclear single atomic arrays.
These research results were recently published in Physical Review Letters and were selected as editors' recommended papers and physics feature papers as important research results. At the same time, the American Physical Society network published an article "Quantum Computing Arrays Made of Two Types of Atoms" to review the results of this research.
Image courtesy of Physical Review Letters
In the study of quantum computing and quantum simulation, when the number of qubits (qubits) is expanded, there is an obvious crosstalk problem in the operation of the quantum logic gate of the co-core system, as well as the initialization and state readout of the qubits.
One way to avoid crosstalk is to use the difference in the resonance frequencies of heterogeneous atoms to establish a spectrally isolated qubit system of heterogeneous atoms, that is, a heteronuclear atomic system. The system can be used to perform different tasks in quantum computing: for example, one atomic qubit as a checksum in the error correction code, and another atom as a data qubit, which can effectively perform error correction and avoid crosstalk. The aforementioned system can also be used for quantum simulations, as the additional degrees of manipulation freedom provide the conditions for the simulation of multi-component, multi-spin systems.
Compared with the same-core system, heteronuclear atomic systems have broader application prospects in the fields of quantum simulation, quantum computing and quantum precision measurement. In addition, the establishment of heterogeneous atomic array systems is also a necessary way to achieve the synthesis of polar single-molecule arrays. However, the difficulty in establishing this system lies in the handling of misaligned atoms in the loading and rearrangement of heteronuclear single atoms. As a result, defective arrays of heteronuclear atoms have not been reported internationally.
This time, Zhan Mingsheng's research team, under the research of researchers He Xiaodong and Xu Peng, solved the problem of uniform loading of two atoms by accurately regulating the detuning and power of the laser, and developed the group heuristic algorithm combined with the algorithm of priority calibration, effectively arranged the misplaced atoms, and realized the heteronuclear single-atom array of 15 87Rb plus 15 85Rb (Rb is the chemical element rubidium). The team demonstrated the effectiveness of the algorithm on the arrangement of different two-dimensional atomic arrays, showing a variety of atomic arrays such as checkerboard type, lattice cross type, zebra crossing type and so on.
Image from the Institute of Precision Measurement, Chinese Academy of Sciences
So far, combined with the preliminary work in the quantum entanglement of heteronuclear atoms, the equilibrium coherence time of heteronuclear atoms in the magic light well, and the coherence of heteronuclear atoms to form single molecules, the team of Zhan Mingsheng of the Institute of Precision Measurement of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has successfully created a unique two-component single-atom array platform, and it is expected to make outstanding progress in quantum computing, quantum simulation, single-molecule array, precision measurement, multibody physics and other aspects of research based on the multi-body quantum platform in the future.
Special research assistant Sheng Cheng was the first author of the paper, and Guo Ruijun, a postdoctoral fellow at Zhengzhou University, participated in the study. The research has been funded by the Key R&D Program of the Ministry of Science and Technology, the National Natural Science Foundation of China, the Pilot Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.