Control and readout of a 13-level trapped ion qudit

Abstract Scaling up the computational space of a quantum system is necessary to demonstrate quantum algorithmic advantage. Currently, including more information carriers is still a physical challenge in general. A less explored avenue for scaling up the computational space involves utilizing the ric...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Pei Jiang Low, Brendan White, Crystal Senko
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Nature Portfolio 2025-05-01
Series:npj Quantum Information
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1038/s41534-025-01031-y
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Summary:Abstract Scaling up the computational space of a quantum system is necessary to demonstrate quantum algorithmic advantage. Currently, including more information carriers is still a physical challenge in general. A less explored avenue for scaling up the computational space involves utilizing the rich energy level structure of a trapped ion to encode multi-level qudits rather than two-level qubits. Here we show control and single-shot readout of qudits with 13 computational states in our chosen information host, 137Ba+. Utilizing the additional energy states found in 137Ba+ comes with non-trivial complexities which obscure the practical choices of energy states for qudit encoding. We report on tools we have developed for predicting energy states that are practical for qudit encoding, validated with good agreement with our experimental data. We also identify the major error sources for qudit control with 137Ba+ as avenues for improvement to achieve high fidelity operations.
ISSN:2056-6387