Trapped ions are one of the leading systems to build quantum computers. To link multiple such quantum systems, interfaces are needed through which the quantum information can be transmitted. Until now, trapped ions were only entangled with each other over a few meters in the same laboratory. Researchers from the university of Innsbruck succeeded to entangle two trapped ions located in two labs separated by 230 meters. These efforts have been supported by a theoretical model of a single trapped ion including most of experimental noise sources.
The model, developed at IPhT, provided a guidance for the experimentalists, showing for example what to expect when increasing the distance or helping to identify the most detrimental noise sources. With the entanglement of far away ions, Austrian researchers show that trapped ions are a promising platform for future quantum networks that span cities and eventually continents. The results have been published in Physical Review Letters. They have been highlighted by Editors’ Suggestion and a Synopsis in Physics.
Entanglement of trapped-ion qubits separated by 230 meters
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.050803
See also the Synopsis
https://physics.aps.org/articles/v16/s20
