Quantum computing promises to advance our computational abilities significantly in many high-impact research areas. In this period of rapid development, the experimental capabilities needed to build quantum computing devices and prototypes are highly specialized and often difficult to access. In this public talk, we'll discuss how to build quantum computing devices one atom a time using the ion-trap approach. We'll show how we build quantum bits out of individually isolated atoms, explore how we use them to simulate other complex systems, and showcase how we're building open-access hardware to advance research in this exciting field.
Rajibul Islam is an Associate Professor at the IQC and the Department of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Waterloo, and the lead of the Laboratory for Quantum Information with Trapped Ions (QITI). His research uses trapped-ion systems to study quantum computation and quantum simulation, especially of frustrated spin systems, as well as developed tools for quantum control with holography and high-resolution microscopy. He is also the co-founder of Open Quantum Design, a Waterloo start-up building open-access quantum computing systems out of trapped ions for research use.