We propose an approach to reconstruct two-electron spin qubit states in semiconductor quantum dots by employing tomographic techniques. This procedure exploits the combination of fast gate operations on electron spins trapped in dots and dynamical nuclear polarization of the underlying Ga and As nuclei. The presented method can be an important tool in solid state quantum computation for complete characterization of qubit states and theirs correlations.
We consider a system of static spin qubits embedded in a one-dimensional spin coherent channel and develop a scheme to readout the state of one and two qubits separately. We use unpolarized flying qubits for this purpose that scatter off from the static qubits due to the Heisenberg exchange interaction. Analysing the transmission coefficient as a function of density matrix elements along with additional unitary gates we reconstruct the state of static qubits.
We investigate a range of methods to perform tomography in a solid-state qubit device, for which a priori initialization and measurement of the qubit is restricted to a single basis of the Bloch sphere. We explore and compare several methods to acquire precise descriptions of additional states and measurements, quantifying both stochastic and systematic errors, ultimately leading to a tomographically-complete set that can be subsequently used in process tomography. We focus in detail on the example of a spin qubit formed by the singlet-triplet subspace of two electron spins in a GaAs double qu…
As a possible physical realization of a quantum information processor, a system with stacked self-assembled InAs quantum dots buried in GaAs in adjacent to the channel of a spin field-effect transistor has been proposed. In this system, only one of the stacked qubits, i.e. the edge qubit (the qubit closest to the channel), is measurable via "spin-blockade measurement." It is shown that the state tomography of the whole chain of the qubits is still possible even under such a restricted accessibility. The idea is to make use of the entangling dynamics of the qubits. A recipe for the two-qubit sy…
We report initialization, complete electrical control, and single-shot readout of an exchange-only spin qubit. Full control via the exchange interaction is fast, yielding a demonstrated 75 qubit rotations in under 2 ns. Measurement and state tomography are performed using a maximum-likelihood estimator method, allowing decoherence, leakage out of the qubit state space, and measurement fidelity to be quantified. The methods developed here are generally applicable to systems with state leakage, noisy measurements, and non-orthogonal control axes.
We analyze the quantum process tomography (QPT) in the presence of decoherence, focusing on distinguishing local and non-local decoherence mechanisms for a two-partite system from experimental QPT data. In particular, we consider the $\sqrt{\rm iSWAP}$ gate realized with superconducting phase qubits and calculate the QPT matrix $χ$ in the presence of several local and non-local decoherence processes. We determine specific patterns of these decoherence processes, which can be used for a fast identification of the main decoherence mechanisms from an experimental $χ$-matrix.
In this theoretical manuscript I propose a scheme for entangling a single electron semiconductor spin qubit with a single electron semiconductor charge qubit in a triangular triple quantum dot configuration. Two out of three quantum dots are used to define a single electron semiconductor charge qubit. Furthermore, the spin qubit is embedded in the Zeeman sub-levels of the third quantum dot. Combining single qubit gates with entangling CNOT gates allows one to construct a SWAP gate, and therefore to use the semiconductor spin qubit as a long-lived memory for the semiconductor charge qubit.
We discuss the state tomography of a fixed qubit (a spin-1/2 target particle), which is in general in a mixed state, through 1D scattering of a probe qubit off the target. Two strategies are presented, by making use of different degrees of freedom of the probe, spin and momentum. Remarkably, the spatial degree of freedom of the probe can be useful for the tomography of the qubit.
State tomography on qubit pairs is routinely carried out by measuring the two qubits separately, while one expects a higher efficiency from tomography with highly symmetric joint measurements of both qubits. Our numerical study of simulated experiments does not support such expectations.
The Coulomb interactions between electrons play important roles in coupling multiple qubits in various quantum systems. Here we demonstrate controlled quantum operations of three electron charge qubits based on three capacitively coupled semiconductor double quantum dots. The strong interactions between one double dot and other two double dots enable us to control the coherent rotations of one target qubit by the states of two control qubits.
We present a scheme for full quantum state tomography tailored for two spin qubits in a double quantum dot. A set of 15 quantum states allows to determine the density matrix in this two-qubit space by projective measurement. In this paper we choose a set gained from mutually unbiased bases. We determine how those 15 projections can be represented by charge measurements after a spin-to-charge conversion and the application of quantum gates. The quantum gates include exchange-based gates as well as rotations by electron spin resonance (ESR). We assume the experimental realization of ESR operatio…
We report on the implementation of quantum state tomography for an ensemble of Eu$^{3+}$ dopant ions in a \YSO crystal. The tomography was applied to a qubit based on one of the ion's optical transitions. The qubit was manipulated using optical pulses and measurements were made by observing the optical free induction in a phase sensitive manner. Fidelities of $>90$% for the combined preparation and measurement process were achieved. Interactions between the ions due to the change in the ions' permanent electric dipole moment when excited optically were also measured. In light of these results,…
In recent years semiconducting qubits have undergone a remarkable evolution, making great strides in overcoming decoherence as well as in prospects for scalability, and have become one of the leading contenders for the development of large-scale quantum circuits. In this Review we describe the current state of the art in semiconductor charge and spin qubits based on gate-controlled semiconductor quantum dots, shallow dopants, and color centers in wide band gap materials. We frame the relative strengths of the different semiconductor qubit implementations in the context of quantum simulations, …
The efficiency of quantum state tomography is discussed from the point of view of quantum parameter estimation theory, in which the trace of the weighted covariance is to be minimized. It is shown that tomography is optimal only when a special weight is adopted.
Quantum entanglement is a fundamental property of coherent quantum states and an essential resource for quantum computing. While two-qubit entanglement has been demonstrated for spins in silicon, creation of multipartite entanglement, a first step toward implementing quantum error correction, has remained challenging due to the difficulties in controlling a multi-qubit array, such as device disorder, magnetic and electrical noises and exacting exchange controls. Here, we show operation of a fully functional three-qubit array in silicon and generation of a three-qubit Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinge…
Velleytronics as a new electronic conception is an emerging exciting research field with wide potential applications, which is attracting great research interests for their extraordinary properties. The localized electronic spins by optical generation of valley polarization with spin-like quantum numbers are promising candidates for implementing quantum-information processing in solids. It is expected that a single qubit preparation can be realized optically by using combination of left- and right-circularly polarized lights. Significantly in a series of experiments, this has already been well…
We propose a method for the tomographic reconstruction of qubit states for a general class of solid state systems in which the Hamiltonians are represented by spin operators, e.g., with Heisenberg-, $XXZ$-, or XY- type exchange interactions. We analyze the implementation of the projective operator measurements, or spin measurements, on qubit states. All the qubit states for the spin Hamiltonians can be reconstructed by using experimental data.
Quantum state tomography suffers from the measurement effort increasing exponentially with the number of qubits. Here, we demonstrate permutationally invariant tomography for which, contrary to conventional tomography, all resources scale polynomially with the number of qubits both in terms of the measurement effort as well as the computational power needed to process and store the recorded data. We demonstrate the benefits of combining permutationally invariant tomography with compressed sensing by studying the influence of the pump power on the noise present in a six-qubit symmetric Dicke st…
A new qubit tomography protocol is introduced, based on a continuous positive operator valued measure, which is supported by the set of pure states, and equivariant under the symmetry group SO(3,R) of the qubit state space. Thus the sample data for the tomography protocol is a discrete set of points on the Bloch sphere obtained by a series of independent measurements on identical replicas of the qubit. Although the maximum likelihood estimator uniquely exists, it cannot be explicitly calculated. Instead, we present another convenient, simple estimator, show that it is unbiased and calculate it…
We investigate quantum state reconstruction of a superconducting qubit threaded by an Aharonov-Bohm flux, with particular attention to the local geometric phase. A state reconstruction scheme is introduced with a proper account of the local geometric phase generated by Faraday's law of induction. Our scheme is based on measurement of three complementary quantities, that is, the extra charge and two local currents. Incorporating time-reversal symmetry and the Faraday's law, we show that the full density matrix can be reconstructed without ambiguity in the choice of gauge. This procedure clearly…
We demonstrate high-fidelity Zeeman qubit state detection in a single trapped 88 Sr+ ion. Qubit readout is performed by shelving one of the qubit states to a metastable level using a narrow linewidth diode laser at 674 nm followed by state-selective fluorescence detection. The average fidelity reached for the readout of the qubit state is 0.9989(1). We then measure the fidelity of state tomography, averaged over all possible single-qubit states, which is 0.9979(2). We also fully characterize the detection process using quantum process tomography. This readout fidelity is compatible with recent…
Measurement-based quantum computing (MBQC) promises natural compatibility with quantum error correcting codes at the cost of a polynomial increase in physical qubits. MBQC proposals have largely focused on photonic systems, where 2-qubit gates are difficult. Semiconductor spin qubits in quantum dots, on the other hand, offer fast 2-qubit gates via the exchange interaction. In exchange-based quantum computing, as with other solid-state qubits, leakage to higher states is a serious problem that must be mitigated. Here, two hybrid measurement-exchange schemes are proposed which quantify the benef…
We propose a method for precision statistical control of quantum processes based on superconductor phase qubits. Using the universal quantum tomography method, we provide a detailed analysis of accuracy of tomography for a 2-qubit gate SQiSW, which arises due to capacitive coupling between qubits. The developed approach could be successfully applied for quality and efficiency problems of superconductor quantum information technologies.
We present a numerically-optimized multipulse framework for the quantum control of a single-electron charge qubit. Our framework defines a set of pulse sequences, necessary for the manipulation of the ideal qubit basis, that avoids errors associated with excitations outside the computational subspace. A novel control scheme manipulates the qubit adiabatically, while also retaining high speed and ability to perform a general single-qubit rotation. This basis generates spatially localized logical qubit states, making readout straightforward. We consider experimentally realistic semiconductor qub…
We present measurements of single-qubit gate errors for a superconducting qubit. Results from quantum process tomography and randomized benchmarking are compared with gate errors obtained from a double pi pulse experiment. Randomized benchmarking reveals a minimum average gate error of 1.1+/-0.3% and a simple exponential dependence of fidelity on the number of gates. It shows that the limits on gate fidelity are primarily imposed by qubit decoherence, in agreement with theory.
We present an example of quantum process tomography performed on a single solid state qubit. The qubit used is two energy levels of the triplet state in the Nitrogen-Vacancy defect in Diamond. Quantum process tomography is applied to a qubit which has been allowed to decohere for three different time periods. In each case the process is found in terms of the $χ$ matrix representation and the affine map representation. The discrepancy between experimentally estimated process and the closest physically valid process is noted.
The optimal state determination (or tomography) is studied for a composite system of two qubits when measurements can be performed on one of the qubits and interactions of the two qubits can be implemented. The goal is to minimize the number of interactions to be used. The algebraic method applied in the paper leads to an extension of the concept of mutually unbiased measurements.
We study quantum coherence in a semiconductor charge qubit formed from a GaAs double quantum dot containing a single electron. Voltage pulses are applied to depletion gates to drive qubit rotations and non-invasive state readout is achieved using a quantum point contact charge detector. We measure a maximum coherence time of ~7 ns at the charge degeneracy point, where the qubit level splitting is first-order-insensitive to gate voltage fluctuations. We compare measurements of the coherence time as a function of detuning with predictions from a 1/f noise model.
Quantum state tomography is an important tool in quantum information science for complete characterization of multi-qubit states and their correlations. Here we report a method to perform a joint simultaneous read-out of two superconducting qubits dispersively coupled to the same mode of a microwave transmission line resonator. The non-linear dependence of the resonator transmission on the qubit state dependent cavity frequency allows us to extract the full two-qubit correlations without the need for single shot read-out of individual qubits. We employ standard tomographic techniques to recons…
We combine elements of the 1998 quantum computing proposals by Privman, Vagner and Kventsel, and by Kane, with the new idea of nuclear-spin qubit interactions mediated indirectly via the bound outer electrons of impurity atoms whose nuclear spins 1/2 are the qubits. These electrons, in turn, interact via the two-dimensional electron gas in the quantum Hall effect regime. The resulting quantum computing scheme retains all the gate-control and measurement aspects of the proposal by Kane, but allows qubit spacing at distances of order 100 nm, attainable with the present-day semiconductor-heterost…
Determination of qubit initialisation and measurement fidelity is important for the overall performance of a quantum computer. However, the method by which it is calculated in semiconductor qubits varies between experiments. In this paper we present a full theoretical analysis of electronic single-shot readout and describe critical parameters to achieve high fidelity readout. In particular, we derive a model for energy selective state readout based on a charge detector response and examine how to optimise the fidelity by choosing correct experimental parameters. Although we focus on single ele…
Optimal generalized measurements for state estimation are well understood. However, practical quantum state tomography is typically performed using a fixed set of projective measurements and the question of how to choose these measurements has been largely unexplored in the literature. In this work we develop theoretical asymptotic bounds for the average fidelity of pure qubit tomography using measurement sets whose axes correspond to vertices of Platonic solids. We also present complete simulations of maximum likelihood tomography for mixed qubit states using the Platonic solid measurements. …
State of the art qubit systems are reaching the gate fidelities required for scalable quantum computation architectures. Further improvements in the fidelity of quantum gates demands characterization and benchmarking protocols that are efficient, reliable and extremely accurate. Ideally, a benchmarking protocol should also provide information on how to rectify residual errors. Gate Set Tomography (GST) is one such protocol designed to give detailed characterization of as-built qubits. We implemented GST on a high-fidelity electron-spin qubit confined by a single $^{31}$P atom in $^{28}$Si. The…
A crucial requirement for scalable quantum-information processing is the realization of multiple-qubit quantum gates. Universal multiple-qubit gates can be implemented by a set of universal single qubit gates and any one kind of two-qubit gate, such as a controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate. Semiconductor quantum dot qubits are a leading approach for the physical implementation of quantum computation, due to their potential for large-scale integration. Two-qubit gate operations have been so far only demonstrated in individual electron spin-based quantum dot systems. Due to the relatively short de-cohere…
We analyze decoherence of an electron in a double-dot due to the interaction with acoustic phonons. For large tunneling rates between the quantum dots, the main contribution to decoherence comes from the phonon emission relaxation processes, while for small tunneling rates, the virtual-phonon, dephasing processes dominate. Our results show that in common semiconductors, such as Si and GaAs, the latter mechanism determines the upper limit for the double-dot charge qubit performance measure.
The fault-tolerant operation of logical qubits is an important requirement for realizing a universal quantum computer. Spin qubits based on quantum dots have great potential to be scaled to large numbers because of their compatibility with standard semiconductor manufacturing. Here, we show that a quantum error correction code can be implemented using a four-qubit array in germanium. We demonstrate a resonant SWAP gate and by combining controlled-Z and controlled-$\text{S}^{-1}$ gates we construct a Toffoli-like three-qubit gate. We execute a two-qubit phase flip code and find that we can pres…
Practical quantum state tomography is usually performed by carrying out repeated measurements on many copies of a given state. The accuracy of the reconstruction depends strongly on the dimensionality of the system and the number of copies used for the measurements. We investigate the accuracy of an experimental implementation of a minimal and optimal tomography scheme for one- and two-qubit states encoded in the polarization of photons. A suitable statistical model for the attainable accuracy is introduced.
Tomography is an indispensable part of quantum computation as it enables diagnosis of a quantum process through state reconstruction. Existing tomographic protocols are based on determining expectation values of various Pauli operators which typically require single-qubit rotations. However, in realistic systems, qubits often develop some form of unavoidable stray coupling making it difficult to manipulate one qubit independent of its partners. Consequently, standard protocols applied to those systems result in unfaithful reproduction of the true quantum state. We have developed a protocol, ca…
Implementations for quantum computing require fast single- and multi-qubit quantum gate operations. In the case of optically controlled quantum dot qubits theoretical designs for long-range two- or multi-qubit operations satisfying all the requirements in quantum computing are not yet available. We have developed a design for a fast, long-range two-qubit gate mediated by a photonic microcavity mode using excited states of the quantum dot-cavity system that addresses these needs. This design does not require identical qubits, it is compatible with available optically induced single qubit operat…
In this paper, we derive analytic expressions for the starting (initial) values of the parameters of the T-matrix that is frequently employed in the construction of a theoretical density matrix in a Maximum Likelihood Estimate (MLE) procedure; this optimization procedure is used to fit the experimental data pertaining to single qubit state tomography. Appropriate starting values are critical in achieving a global minimum in the fitting process. We also indicate an analytic way of making the experimentally determined density matrix physical without resorting to the MLE process, if optimality in…
We analyze the coupling of two qubits via an epitaxial semiconducting junction. In particular, we consider three configurations that include pairs of transmons or gatemons as well as gatemon-like two qubits formed by an epitaxial four-terminal junction. These three configurations provide an electrical control of the interaction between the qubits by applying voltage to a metallic gate near the semiconductor junction and can be utilized to naturally realize a controlled-Z gate (CZ). We calculate the fidelity and timing for such CZ gate. We demonstrate that in the absence of decoherence, the CZ …
Semiconductor qubits rely on the control of charge and spin degrees of freedom of electrons or holes confined in quantum dots (QDs). They constitute a promising approach to quantum information processing [1, 2], complementary to superconducting qubits [3]. Typically, semiconductor qubit-qubit coupling is short range [1, 2, 4, 5], effectively limiting qubit distance to the spatial extent of the wavefunction of the confined particle, which represents a significant constraint towards scaling to reach dense 1D or 2D arrays of QD qubits. Following the success of circuit quantum eletrodynamics [6], …
We describe a method by which the decoherence time of a solid state qubit may be measured. The qubit is coded in the orbital degree of freedom of a single electron bound to a pair of donor impurities in a semiconductor host. The qubit is manipulated by adiabatically varying an external electric field. We show that, by measuring the total probability of a successful qubit rotation as a function of the control field parameters, the decoherence rate may be determined. We estimate various system parameters, including the decoherence rates due to electromagnetic fluctuations and acoustic phonons. W…
We present a highly flexible computational scheme for studying correlated electrons confined by an arbitrary external potential in two-dimensional semiconductor quantum dots. The method starts by a Lagrange mesh calculation for the single-particle states, followed by the calculation of the Coulomb interaction matrix elements between these, and combining both in the exact diagonalization of the many-body Hamiltonian. We apply the method in simulation of double quantum dot singlet-triplet qubits. We simulate the full quantum control and dynamics of one singlet-triplet qubit. We also use our meth…
We review single-qubit quantum process tomography for trace-preserving and nontrace-preserving processes, and derive explicit forms of the general constraints for fitting experimental data. These forms provide additional insight into the structure of the process matrix as well as reveal a tighter bound on the trace of a nontrace-preserving process than has been previously stated. We also describe, for completeness, how to incorporate measured imperfect input states.
We introduce and demonstrate experimentally: (1) a framework called "gate set tomography" (GST) for self-consistently characterizing an entire set of quantum logic gates on a black-box quantum device; (2) an explicit closed-form protocol for linear-inversion gate set tomography (LGST), whose reliability is independent of pathologies such as local maxima of the likelihood; and (3) a simple protocol for objectively scoring the accuracy of a tomographic estimate without reference to target gates, based on how well it predicts a set of testing experiments. We use gate set tomography to characteriz…
We present, and analyze thoroughly, a highly symmetric and efficient scheme for the determination of a single-qubit state, such as the polarization properties of photons emitted by a single-photon source. In our scheme there are only four measured probabilities, just enough for the determination of the three parameters that specify the qubit state, whereas the standard procedure would measure six probabilities.
We briefly review single-qubit quantum process tomography for trace-preserving and nontrace-preserving processes, and derive explicit forms of the general constraints for fitting experimental data. These new forms provide additional insight into the structure of the process matrix. We illustrate their utility with several examples, including a discussion of qubit leakage error models and the intuition which can be gained from their process matrices.
We used quantum process tomography to investigate and identify the function of a nonideal two-qubit quantum-state filters subject to various degree of decoherence. We present a simple decoherence model that explains the experimental results and point out that a beamsplitter followed by a post-selection process is not, as commonly believed, a singlet-state filter. In the ideal case it is a triplet-state filter.
The spin-coherent-state positive-operator-valued-measure (POVM) is a fundamental measurement in quantum science, with applications including tomography, metrology, teleportation, benchmarking, and measurement of Husimi phase space probabilities. We prove that this POVM is achieved by collectively measuring the spin projection of an ensemble of qubits weakly and isotropically. We apply this in the context of optimal tomography of pure qubits. We show numerically that through a sequence of weak measurements of random directions of the collective spin component, sampled discretely or in a continu…
We use quantum detector tomography to characterize the qubit readout in terms of measurement POVMs on IBM Quantum Computers IBM Q 5 Tenerife and IBM Q 5 Yorktown. Our results suggest that the characterized detector model deviates from the ideal projectors by a few percent. Further improvement on this characterization can be made by adopting two- or more-qubit detector models instead of independent single-qubit detectors for all the qubits in one device. An unexpected behavior was seen in the physical qubit labelled as qubit 3 of IBM Q 5 Tenerife, which can be a consequence of detector crosstal…
We consider charge qubits based on shallow donor electron states in silicon and coupled quantum dots in GaAs. Specifically, we study the feasibility of P$_2^+$ charge qubits in Si, focusing on single qubit properties in terms of tunnel coupling between the two phosphorus donors and qubit decoherence caused by electron-phonon interaction. By taking into consideration the multi-valley structure of the Si conduction band, we show that inter-valley quantum interference has important consequences for single-qubit operations of P$_2^+$ charge qubits. In particular, the valley interference leads to a…
Long-time dynamical decoupling and quantum control of qubits require high-precision control pulses. Full characterization (quantum tomography) of imperfect pulses presents a bootstrap problem: tomography requires initial states of a qubit which can not be prepared without imperfect pulses. We present a protocol for pulse error analysis, specifically tailored for a wide range of the single solid-state electron spins. Using a single electron spin of a nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond, we experimentally verify the correctness of the protocol, and demonstrate its usefulness for quantum cont…
