We introduce a method for detection of chiral molecules using sequences of three pulses driving a closed-loop three-state quantum system. The left- and right-handed enantiomers have identical optical properties (transition frequencies and transition dipole moments) with the only difference being the sign of one of the couplings. We identify twelve different sequences of resonant pulses for which chiral resolution with perfect contrast occurs. In all of them the first and third pulses are $π/2$-pulses and the middle pulse is a $π$-pulse. In addition, one of the three pulses must have a phase shift of $π/2$ with respect to the other two. The simplicity of the proposed chiral resolution technique allows for straightforward extensions to more efficient and more robust implementations by replacing the single $π/2$ and $π$-pulses by composite pulses. We present specific examples of chiral resolution by composite pulses which compensate errors in the pulse areas and the detuning of the driving fields.
We show that some composite pulses widely employed in NMR experiments are regarded as non-adiabatic geometric quantum gates with Aharanov-Anandan phases. Thus, we reveal the presence of a fundamental issue on quantum mechanics behind the traditional technique of the composite pulses. To examine the robustness of such composite pulses against fluctuations, we present a practical noise model in a two-level system. Then, we find that the composite pulses possesses purely geometrical nature even under a specific type of fluctuations.
We present three classes of symmetric broadband composite pulse sequences. The composite phases are given by analytic formulas (rational fractions of $π$) valid for any number of constituent pulses. The transition probability is expressed by simple analytic formulas and the order of pulse area error compensation grows linearly with the number of pulses. Therefore, any desired compensation order can be produced by an appropriate composite sequence; in this sense, they are arbitrarily accurate. These composite pulses perform equally well or better than previously published ones. Moreover, the cu…
In NMR experiments and quantum computation, many pulse (quantum gate) sequences called the composite pulses, were developed to suppress one of two dominant errors; a pulse length error and an off-resonance error. We describe, in this paper, a general prescription to design a single-qubit concatenated composite pulse (CCCP) that is robust against two types of errors simultaneously. To this end, we introduce a new property, which is satisfied by some composite pulses and is sufficient to obtain a CCCP. Then we introduce a general method to design CCCPs with shorter execution time and less number…
We introduce universal broadband composite pulse sequences for robust high-fidelity population inversion in two-state quantum systems, which compensate deviations in any experimental parameter (e.g. pulse amplitude, pulse duration, detuning from resonance, Stark shifts, unwanted frequency chirp, etc.) and are applicable with any pulse shape. We demonstrate the efficiency and universality of these composite pulses by experimental data on rephasing of atomic coherences in a $\text{Pr}^{3+}\text{:}\text{Y}_2\text{SiO}_5$ crystal.
Composite pulses --- sequences of pulses with well defined relative phases --- are an efficient, robust and flexible technique for coherent control of quantum systems. Composite sequences can compensate a variety of experimental errors in the driving field (e.g. in the pulse amplitude, duration, detuning, chirp, etc.) or in the quantum system and its environment (e.g. inhomogeneous broadening, stray electric or magnetic fields, unwanted couplings, etc.). The control parameters are the relative phases between the constituent pulses in the composite sequence, an accurate control over which is re…
We show that all geometric quantum gates (GQG's in short), which are quantum gates only with geometric phases, are robust against control field strength errors. As examples of this observation, we show (1) how robust composite rf-pulses in NMR are geometrically constructed and (2) a composite rf-pulse based on Trotter-Suzuki Formulas is a GQG.
We perform comprehensive experimental tests of various composite pulse sequences using one of open-access IBM's quantum processors, based on superconducting transmon qubits. We implement explicit pulse control of the qubit by making use of the opportunity of low-level access to the backend, provided by IBM Quantum. We obtain the excitation profiles for a huge variety of broadband, narrowband, and passband composite pulses, producing any pre-chosen target probabilities, ranging from zero to one. We also test universal composite pulses which compensate errors in any experimental parameter. In al…
Composite pulses have found widespread use in both conventional Nuclear Magnetic Resonance experiments and in experimental quantum information processing to reduce the effects of systematic errors. Here we describe several families of time symmetric and antisymmetric fully compensating composite pulses, inspired by the previous Fn, Gn and BB1 families family developed by Wimperis. We describe families of composite 180 degree pulses (NOT gates) which exhibit unprecedented tolerance of pulse strength errors without unreasonable sensitivity to off-resonance errors, and related families with more …
Composite pulse sequences, which produce arbitrary pre-defined rotations of a two-state system at an angle $θ$ on the Bloch sphere, are presented. The composite sequences can contain arbitrarily many pulses and can compensate experimental errors in the pulse amplitude and duration to any desired order. A special attention is devoted to two classes of $π/2$ sequences --- symmetric and asymmetric --- the phases of which are given by simple formulas in terms of rational multiples of $π$ for any number of constituent pulses. This allows one to construct arbitrarily accurate $π/2$ composite rotatio…
We present a general procedure to implement a NOT gate by composite pulses robust against both offset uncertainties and control field variations. We define different degrees of robustness in this two-parameter space, namely along one, two or all directions. We show that the phases of the composite pulse satisfy a nonlinear system, and can be computed analytically or numerically.
We propose various composite $π$-pulse sequences for implementing robust z-axis rotation gates widely used in quantum information processing (QIP) scenarios, and discuss their error tolerance of the pulse strength error (PSE) and off-resonance error (ORE), i.e., two typical systematic errors in NMR systems. Compared to existing composite gates, our designed composite pulses exhibit higher gate fidelity and shorter sequence time cost. Furthermore, such short pulse sequences are generalized by simple analytic formulas which can suppress these errors to any desired order simultaneously with linea…
Composite pulses are an efficient tool for robust quantum control. In this work, we derive the form of the composite pulse sequence to implement robust single-qubit gates in a three-level system, where two low-energy levels act as a qubit. The composite pulses can efficiently cancel the systematic errors up to a certain order. We find that the three-pulse sequence cannot completely eliminate the first order of systematic errors, but still availably makes the fidelity resistant to variations in a specific direction. When employing more pulses in the sequence ($N>3$), the fidelity can be insensi…
We introduce a novel control method for robust quantum information processing suited for quantum integrated photonics. We utilize off-resonant detunings as control parameters to derive a new family of composite pulses for high-fidelity population transfer within the quantum error threshold. By design, our detuning-modulated N-piece composite sequences correct for any control inaccuracies including pulse strength, duration, resonance offsets errors, Stark shifts, unwanted frequency chirp, etc. We reveal the symmetries of the pulses that allow for straightforward scaling with minimal pulse overh…
We discuss the implementation of arbitrary precision composite pulses developed using the methods of Brown et al. [Phys. Rev. A 70 (2004) 052318]. We give explicit results for pulse sequences designed to tackle both the simple case of pulse length errors and for the more complex case of off-resonance errors. The results are developed in the context of NMR quantum computation, but could be applied more widely.
We derive composite pulse sequences that achieve high-fidelity excitation of two-state systems in an optically dense, inhomogeneously broadened ensemble. The composite pulses are resistant to distortions due to the back-action of the medium they propagate in and are able to create high-fidelity inversion to optical depths $αz>10$. They function well with smooth pulse shapes used for coherent control of optical atomic transitions in quantum computation and communication. They are an intermediary solution between single $π$-pulse excitation schemes and adiabatic passage schemes, being far more e…
We present two methods for efficient detection of chiral molecules based on sequences of single pulses and Raman pulse pairs. The chiral molecules are modelled by a closed-loop three-state system with different signs in one of the couplings for the two enantiomers. One method uses a sequence of three interaction steps: a single pulse, a Raman pulse, and another single pulse. The other method uses a sequence of only two interaction steps: a Raman pulse, and a single pulse. The second method is simpler and faster but requires a more sophisticated Raman pulse than the first one. Both techniques a…
We introduce a method to rotate arbitrarily the excitation profile of universal broadband composite pulse sequences for robust high-fidelity population inversion. These pulses compensate deviations in any experimental parameter (e.g. pulse amplitude, pulse duration, detuning from resonance, Stark shifts, unwanted frequency chirp, etc.) and are applicable with any pulse shape. The rotation allows to achieve higher order robustness to any combination of pulse area and detuning errors at no additional cost. The latter can be particularly useful, e.g., when detuning errors are due to Stark shifts …
Composite pulse sequences, which produce arbitrary pre-defined rotations of a qubit on the Bloch sphere, are presented. The composite sequences contain up to 17 pulses and can compensate up to eight orders of experimental errors in the pulse amplitude and the pulse duration. Composite sequences for three basic quantum gates -- X (NOT), Hadamard and arbitrary rotation -- are derived. Three classes of composite sequences are presented -- one symmetric and two asymmetric. They contain as their lowest members two well-known composite sequences -- the three-pulse symmetric SCROFULOUS pulse and the …
Unitary operations acting on a quantum system must be robust against systematic errors in control parameters for reliable quantum computing. Composite pulse technique in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) realises such a robust operation by employing a sequence of possibly poor quality pulses. In this article, we demonstrate that two kinds of composite pulses, one compensates for a pulse length error in a one-qubit system and the other compensates for a J-coupling error in a twoqubit system, have vanishing dynamical phase and thereby can be seen as geometric quantum gates, which implement unitar…
Systematic errors in quantum operations can be the dominating source of imperfection in achieving control over quantum systems. This problem, which has been well studied in nuclear magnetic resonance, can be addressed by replacing single operations with composite sequences of pulsed operations, which cause errors to cancel by symmetry. Remarkably, this can be achieved without knowledge of the amount of error epsilon. Independent of the initial state of the system, current techniques allow the error to be reduced to O(epsilon^3). Here, we extend the composite pulse technique to cancel errors to…
We introduce flexible high-fidelity passband (PB) composite pulse sequences constructed by concatenation of recently derived arbitrarily large and arbitrarily accurate broadband $\mathcal{B}$ and narrowband $\mathcal{N}$ composite sequences. Our PB sequences allow to produce flexible and tunable nearly rectangular two-state inversion profiles as a function of the individual pulse area because the width and the rectangularity of these profiles can be adjusted at will. Moreover, these PB sequences suppress excitation around pulse area $0$ and $2π$, and suppress deviations from complete populatio…
I describe the use of techniques based on composite rotations to combat systematic errors in quantum logic gates. Although developed and described within the context of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) quantum computing these sequences should be applicable to other implementations of quantum computation.
We present a method to construct high-fidelity quantum phase gates, which are insensitive to errors in various experimental parameters. The phase gates consist of a pair of two sequential broadband composite pulses, with a phase difference $π+α/2$ between them, where $α$ is the desired gate phase. By using composite pulses which compensate systematic errors in the pulse area, the frequency detuning, or both the area and the detuning, we thereby construct composite phase gates which compensate errors in the same parameters. Particularly interesting are phase gates which use the recently discove…
In this work, we exploit the idea of composite pulses to achieve robust population inversion in a three-level quantum system. The scheme is based on the modulation of the coupling strength, while the other physical parameters remain unchanged. The composite pulses sequence is designed by vanishing high-order error terms, and can compensate the systematic errors to any desired order. In particular, this scheme keeps a good performance under the disturbance of waveform deformations. This trait ensures that population inversion can be nearly obtained even when the pulse sequence has a short jump …
We introduce a high-fidelity technique for coherent control of three-state quantum systems, which combines two popular control tools --- stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) and composite pulses. By using composite sequences of pairs of partly delayed pulses with appropriate phases the nonadiabatic transitions, which prevent STIRAP from reaching unit fidelity, can be canceled to an arbitrary order by destructive interference, and therefore the technique can be made arbitrarily accurate. The composite phases are given by simple analytic formulas, and they are universal for they do not de…
We put forward a method for achieving fast and robust for magnetization reversal in a nanomagnet, by combining the inverse engineering and composite pulses. The magnetic fields, generated by microwave with time-dependent frequency, are first designed inversely within short operation time, and composite pulses are further incorporated to improve the fidelity through reducing the effect of magnetic anisotropy. The high-fidelity magnetization reversals are illustrated with numerical examples, and visualized on Bloch sphere. The influence of damping parameters, relevant to the pulse sequence, is f…
We present a general method to derive detuning-modualted composite pulses (DMCPs) as N rotations of a canonical two-state quantum system to create accurate and robust pulses that are independent of the initial state of the system. This scheme has minimal pulse overhead, and achieves pulses that are stable against amplitude errors well within the $10^{-4}$ threshold that may be suitable for quantum information processing (QIP), within the lifetime of the system. This family of pulses enables to overcome inevitable fabrication errors in silicon photonics, and relax the need for a precise initial…
We develop a systematic approach to derive narrowband (NB) and passband (PB) composite sequences which can produce any pre-selected transition probability with any desired accuracy. The NB composite pulses are derived by successive cancellation of derivative terms in the propagator. The PB pulses are built by combining two half-$π$ NB pulses. Both the NB and PB pulses feature vanishing wings on both sides of the central region around the target transition probability, and the PB pulses offer also a flat (broadband) top around the target probability. The NB sequences are particularly suitable f…
A vital requirement for a quantum computer is the ability to locally address, with high fidelity, any of its qubits without affecting their neighbors. We propose an addressing method using composite sequences of laser pulses, which reduces dramatically the addressing error in a lattice of closely spaced atoms or ions, and at the same time significantly enhances the robustness of qubit manipulations. To this end, we design novel high-fidelity composite pulses for the most important single-qubit operations. In principle, this method allows one to beat the diffraction limit, for only atoms situat…
We propose a fast and efficient technique to create classes of highly entangled states of trapped ions, such as arbitrary Dicke states and superpositions of them, e.g. NOON states. The ions are initialized in the phonon ground state and are addressed globally with a composite pulse that is resonant with the first motional sideband. The technique operates on comparatively short time scales, as resonant interactions allow one to use the minimum laser pulse area. The number of single pulses from the composite sequence is equal to the number of ions, thus the implementation complexity grows only l…
We propose a simple formalism to design unitary gates robust against given systematic errors. This formalism generalizes our previous observation [Y. Kondo and M. Bando, J. Phys. Soc. Jpn. 80, 054002 (2011)] that vanishing dynamical phase in some composite gates is essential to suppress amplitude errors. By employing our formalism, we naturally derive a new composite unitary gate which can be seen as a concatenation of two known composite unitary operations. The obtained unitary gate has high fidelity over a wider range of the error strengths compared to existing composite gates.
In this work, we propose a composite pulses scheme by modulating phases to achieve high fidelity population transfer in three-level systems. To circumvent the obstacle that not enough variables are exploited to eliminate the systematic errors in the transition probability, we put forward a cost function to find the optimal value. The cost function is independently constructed either in ensuring an accurate population of the target state, or in suppressing the population of the leakage state, or both of them. The results demonstrate that population transfer is implemented with high fidelity eve…
We study the performance of composite pulses in the presence of time-varying control noise on a single qubit. These protocols, originally devised only to correct for static, systematic errors, are shown to be robust to time-dependent non-Markovian noise in the control field up to frequencies as high as ~10% of the Rabi frequency. Our study combines a generalized filter-function approach with asymptotic dc-limit calculations to give a simple analytic framework for error analysis applied to a number of composite-pulse sequences relevant to nuclear magnetic resonance as well as quantum informatio…
Accurate quantum control is a key technology for realizing quantum information processing, such as quantum communication and quantum computation. In reality, a quantum state under control suffers from undesirable effects caused by systematic errors. A composite pulse (CP) is used to eliminate the effects of systematic errors during control. One qubit control, which is the most fundamental in quantum control, is typically affected by two errors: pulse length error (PLE) and off-resonance error (ORE). In this study, we focus on ORE-robust CPs and systematically construct ORE-robust symmetric CPs…
The fidelity of laser-driven quantum logic operations on trapped ion qubits tend to be lower than microwave-driven logic operations due to the difficulty of stabilizing the driving fields at the ion location. Through stabilization of the driving optical fields and use of composite pulse sequences, we demonstrate high fidelity single-qubit gates for the hyperfine qubit of a $^{171}\text{Yb}^+$ ion trapped in a microfabricated surface electrode ion trap. Gate error is characterized using a randomized benchmarking protocol, and an average error per randomized Clifford group gate of $3.6(3)\times1…
Composite pulses, originally developed in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR), have found widespread use in experimental quantum information processing (QIP) to reduce the effects of systematic errors. Most pulses used so far have simply been adapted from existing NMR designs, and while techniques have been developed for designing composite pulses with arbitrary precision the results have been quite complicated and have found little application. Here I describe techniques for designing short but effective composite pulses to implement robust NOT gates, bringing together existing insights from NMR…
I describe composite pulses during which the average dipolar interactions within a spin ensemble are controlled while realizing a global rotation. The construction method used is based on the average Hamiltonian theory and rely on the geometrical properties of the spin-spin dipolar interaction only. I present several such composite pulses robust against standard experimental defects in NRM: static or radio-frequency field miscalibration, fields inhomogeneities. Numerical simulations show that the magic sandwich pulse sequence, a pulse sequence that reverse the average dipolar field while appli…
We address a problem of generating a robust entangling gate between electronic and nuclear spins in the system of a single nitrogen-vacany centre coupled to a nearest Carbon-13 atom in diamond against certain types of systematic errors such as pulse-length and off-resonance errors. We analyse the robustness of various control schemes: sequential pulses, composite pulses and numerically-optimised pulses. We find that numerically-optimised pulses, produced by the gradient ascent pulse engineering algorithm (GRAPE), are more robust than the composite pulses and the sequential pulses. The optimise…
High fidelity and robustness in population inversion is very desirable for many quantum control applications. We expand composite pulse schemes developed for two-level dynamics, and present an analytic solution for the coherent evolution of an N-level quantum system with SU(2) symmetry, for achieving high fidelity and robust population inversion, which outperforms common solutions in N-level dynamics. Our approach offers a platform for accurate steering of the population transfer in physical multi-level systems, which is crucial for fidelity in quantum computation and achieving fundamental exc…
Trains of ultrashort laser pulses separated by the time of rotational revival (typically, tens of picoseconds) have been exploited for creating ensembles of aligned molecules. In this work we introduce a chiral pulse train - a sequence of linearly polarized pulses with the polarization direction rotating from pulse to pulse by a controllable angle. The chirality of such a train, expressed through the period and direction of its polarization rotation, is used as a new control parameter for achieving selectivity and directionality of laser-induced rotational excitation. The method employs chiral…
We present a general systematic approach to design robust and high-fidelity quantum logic gates with Raman qubits using the technique of composite pulses. We use two mathematical tools -- the Morris-Shore and Majorana decompositions -- to reduce the three-state Raman system to an equivalent two-state system. They allow us to exploit the numerous composite pulses designed for two-state systems by extending them to Raman qubits. We construct the NOT, Hadamard, and rotation gates by means of the Morris-Shore transformation with the same uniform approach: sequences of pulses with the same phases f…
The sensitivity of a practical quantum magnetometer is challenged by both inhomogeneous coupling between sensors and environment and errors in quantum control. Based on the physical criteria of modern quantum sensing, we present a robust and effective composite-pulse for high fidelity operation against inhomogeneous broadening of sensor and control errors via optimized modulation of control field. Such a technique is verified on nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center in diamond to keep almost perfect operation up to a detuning as larger as $110\%$. The sensitivity of the magnetometer with NV center ense…
Amplitude noise which inflicts a random two qubit term is one of the main obstacles preventing the implementation of a high fidelity two-body gate below the fault tolerance threshold. This noise is difficult to refocus as any refocusing technique could only tackle noise with frequency below the operation rate. Since the two qubit gate speed is normally the slowest rate in the system, it constitutes the last bottleneck towards an implementation of a gate below the fault tolerant threshold. Here we propose to use composite pulses as a dynamical decoupling approach, in order to reduce two qubit g…
Composite pulse sequences designed for nuclear magnetic resonance experiments are currently being applied in many quantum information processing technologies.We present an analysis of a family of composite pulse sequences used to address systematic pulse-length errors in the execution of quantum gates. It has been demonstrated by Cummins et al. [Phys. Rev. A 67, 042308 (2003)] that for this family of composite pulse sequences, the fidelity of the resulting unitary operation compared with the ideal unitary operation is 1+C*epsilon^6, where epsilon is the fractional error in the length of the pu…
Implementing a single qubit unitary is often hampered by imperfect control. Systematic amplitude errors $ε$, caused by incorrect duration or strength of a pulse, are an especially common problem. But a sequence of imperfect pulses can provide a better implementation of a desired operation, as compared to a single primitive pulse. We find optimal pulse sequences consisting of $L$ primitive $π$ or $2π$ rotations that suppress such errors to arbitrary order $\mathcal{O}(ε^{n})$ on arbitrary initial states. Optimality is demonstrated by proving an $L=\mathcal{O}(n)$ lower bound and saturating it w…
The Hamiltonian control of n qubits requires precision control of both the strength and timing of interactions. Compensation pulses relax the precision requirements by reducing unknown but systematic errors. Using composite pulse techniques designed for single qubits, we show that systematic errors for n qubit systems can be corrected to arbitrary accuracy given either two non-commuting control Hamiltonians with identical systematic errors or one error-free control Hamiltonian. We also examine composite pulses in the context of quantum computers controlled by two-qubit interactions. For quantu…
Coherent control of two-state systems is traditionally achieved by resonant pulses of specific Rabi frequency and duration, by adiabatic techniques using level crossings or delayed pulses, or by sequences of pulses with precise relative phases (composite pulses). Here we develop a method for high-fidelity coherent control which uses a sequence of detuning pulses. By using the detuning pulse areas as control parameters, and driving on an analogy with composite pulses, we report a great variety of detuning pulse sequences for broadband and narrowband transition probability profiles.
We discuss procedures for error-tolerant spin control in environments that permit transient, large-angle reorientation of magnetic bias field. Short sequences of pulsed, non-resonant magnetic field pulses in a laboratory-frame meridional plane are derived. These are shown to have band-pass excitation properties comparable to established amplitude-modulated, resonant pulses used in high, static-field magnetic resonance. Using these meridional pulses, we demonstrate robust $z$ inversion in proton ($^{1}$H) nuclear magnetic resonance near earth's field.
The error-robust and short composite operations named ConCatenated Composite Pulses (CCCPs), developed as high-precision unitary operations in quantum information processing (QIP), are derived from composite pulses widely employed in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). CCCPs simultaneously compensate for two types of systematic errors, which was not possible with the known composite pulses in NMR. Our experiments demonstrate that CCCPs are powerful and versatile tools not only in QIP but also in NMR.
We present the constructon and detailed analysis of highly-optimized self-refocusing pulse shapes for several rotation angles. We characterize the constructed pulses by the coefficients appearing in the Magnus expansion up to second order. This allows a semi-analytical analysis of the performance of the constructed shapes in sequences and composite pulses by computing the corresponding leading-order error operators. Higher orders can be analyzed with the numerical technique suggested by us previously. We illustrate the technique by analysing several composite pulses designed to protect against…
