Planned New Directions

Here is a selection of our research plans for the near future.

Although newly instigated, PGI-11 is already the focus of many new initiatives in terms of the physical realization of quantum computing. Here is a selection of the plans for the near future:

Many of these plans are driven by the project spearheaded by PGI-11, “Scalable Solid State Quantum Computing”, a multi-million euro, 3 year initiative of the Helmholtz Association in its IVF program (Impulse and Networking Funds), approved in November of 2016.

The scientific thrusts associated with these are:

• Achievement of the control system for a 50-qubit quantum computer. The concept for this is driven from within PGI-11, but will be carried out mostly at the ZEA-2 (Central Electronics Institute) of the Forschungszentrum.
• Devise high-fidelity, long range couplers for spin qubits. This is a coordinated theory-experiment project, looking at both Si and GaAs quantum dot qubits. The technique involving an electron conveyor – a voltagearray structure for adiabatically moving an electron on chip from one quantum-dot area to another – will be the focus of the first phase of research.
• Put the longitudinal-coupling schemes into practice. The theory work on this will continue to be led by PGI-11, but our Helmholtz partners at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) plan experiments with their superconducting qubits to experimentally explore this concept.
• Further development of the theory, and the potential for implementation, of the quantum surface code will go on. This will be focused on the spin qubit problem, but will cross-fertilize with the work that will go on in PGI-2 on the Majorana-qubit surface code.

In parallel with, or beyond, the IVF project activities, the plans for PGI-11 include:

• Further work on a multi-year project in cooperation with IBM, in the framework of the LOGIQ program of the US IARPA agency. Work here identifies theoretically the problems of scaling up a transmon-qubit chip to achieve a fully error-corrected qubit (involving tens of physical qubits).
• Develop participation with many bilateral partners, including at TU Delft, LETI, and others, and work towards multilateral cooperations in the context of QuantERA and the Quantum Technology Flagship, focusing always on the physical implementation of the scalable solid-state quantum computer.