What is Quantum Information?
The Beginning of Quantum Information at NIST
For an Overview of Quantum Information see A Federal Vision for Quantum Information Science developed by the Subcommittee on Quantum Information Science (SQIS) for the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC).
Research Groups involved in the NIST Quantum Information Program
Quantum Information Program at NIST
In 2000, the director and deputy director of NIST established the NIST Quantum Information Program. This program is a coordinated effort to build the first (prototype) quantum logic processor consisting of approximately 10 qubits. The prototype device will be used to provide a proof-in-principle of the ability to process quantum information, demonstrate stabilized quantum memory, and quantum error correction, quantum repeater without output coupling, and to implement optimal quantum strategies for precision measurement.
The NIST Quantum Information Program is an effort that builds on the broad internationally recognized research program involving trapped ions by the NIST Physics Laboratory's Ion Storage Group headed by David Wineland. The expanded effort includes an additional experimental approach based on neutral atoms involving the Laser Cooling and Trapping Group headed by William Phillips, the 1997 Nobel Prize winner in Physics, and the NIST BEC group at JILA led by Eric Cornell, the 2001 Nobel Prize winner in Physics. The effort also includes modeling and theory of quantum devices and quantum information by the Quantum Processes Group led by Paul Julienne and the Electron and Optical Physics Division led by Charles Clark.
Additional Quantum Information Activities at NIST
NIST also has a multi-laboratory effort underway in support of quantum communication that is supported in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) under its Quantum Information Science and Technology (QuIST) program. This effort entitled A Scalable Quantum Information Network is led by Carl Williams and includes representatives of the Electronics and Electrical Engineering Laboratory, the Information Technology Laboratory, and the Physics Laboratory.
Teleportation takes place inside an ion trap made of gold electrodes deposited onto alumina. The trap area is the horizontal opening near the center of the image, Press Release
NIST Quantum Communication Testbed demonstrates the exchange of sifted quantum cryptographic key over a 730 meter free-space link at rates of up to 1.0 Mbps, two orders of magnitude faster than previously reported results. Press Release. Technical paper in Optics Express
A schematic of an ion trap architecture that could possible lead to a large scale ion-trap quantum computer. The figure shows memory qubits in a quantum register and an accumulator where the qubits in the quantum register can be moved together to undergo quantum operations. Technical paper
An illustration showing one atom per optical lattice site. The Laser Cooling and Trapping Group hope to achieve this in the near future.
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