Philippa Young

Designing an Analogue Low Pass Filter System for a Quantum Ion Trap.

Project Background

My project was working with the Ion Quantum Technology group (IQT) which has been run in Sussex since 2005 by Dr Winfried Hensinger. The group is ultimately hoping to develop new quantum technologies, such as the quantum computer.

The idea behind a quantum computer is that by trapping ions and controlling them we can cause them to build a super computer. It would be different to the classical computer in that instead of data 'bits' the information would be sent as 'qubits'.

In a classical computer the 'bits' can be either a 1 or a 0; in quantum computing the 'qubits' can be a 1 a 0 or a superposition of the two. This means that instead of having 4 ordinary bits you could carry the same information on just 2 qubits. In this case 2ⁿ ( where n is the number of bits) is the total number of states (1 or 0) which the qubits can be in simultaneously.

This quantum computer would therefore be much faster than our current computers, leading to much faster processing speeds. This is vital as without advances in technology the current systems will not be able to get smaller and faster as the market demands.

In order to build a quantum computer the first task is to build a trap capable of holding an ion. This is what the group is currently working on and involves a complex set up of lasers, a vacuum system and an imaging system, in addition to a whole host of monitoring equipment and computer controls.

My project this summer is to work with the group and help out the PhD students with any tasks, while carrying out my own project on filtering the input signals. (see pages on my role in the project: "What I did last summer")

More information about both our group and other closely linked groups can be found on the IQT website, along with on the University of Maryland Quantum Ion Computing group.

Alternatively more information on quantum computing, how a quantum computer can be developed and what it will mean for the future at How Stuff Works or Wikipedia.