Colloquium: Quantum science with Rydberg atoms, from one to many

ABSTRACT

Quantum science promises great potential to revolutionize our current technologies. Arrays of individual atoms trapped in optical tweezers have emerged as an attractive architecture for quantum computation and simulation. This architecture has demonstrated great advantages in scalability, and programmability over the array configurations. Controllable inter-atomic interactions are achieved via the Rydberg states of atoms, which facilitate two-qubit gate operations and to simulate quantum many-body systems. However, a long-standing challenge is the readout of Rydberg atoms, which is often a destructive process, precluding qubit reuse and the application of many quantum error-correcting protocols.

To address these challenges, we took an alternative approach based on arrays of atomic ensembles. By harnessing the collective optical response of the atomic ensemble, we demonstrate a rapid preparation, manipulation, and non-demolish readout of a single Rydberg qubit embedded in an atomic ensemble. Scaling up the system towards large arrays of atomic ensembles has been achieved with apparatus upgrade, and preliminary results have demonstrated fast, parallel qubit readout. At the end of this talk, I will outline my proposed research at ETH, which aims for building a novel architecture for quantum computation/simulation with dual type dual-element atom arrays. I expect this architecture can mitigate some long-standing challenges, including individual addressability and non-demolish selective detection.

BIOGRAPHY

Wenchao Xu is a tenure-track assistant professor in the Department of Physics at ETH Zürich since August 2022. She is also a group leader at Paul Scherrer Institute. Prior to join ETH Zürich, she worked as a postdoctoral associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology between 2018 and 2022. She received her Ph.D. in physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2018. Her research interests are centered on quantum simulation, quantum computation, and quantum nonlinear optics with experimental platforms based on neutral atoms.