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AQP Seminar: Implementing the Surface Code with Superconducting Circuits

Aalto Quantum Physics Seminar (Nanotalo). Speaker: Dr. Christian Kraglund Andersen (ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland)
AQP seminar profile

Aalto Quantum Physics Seminar (Nanotalo). Speaker: Dr. Christian Kraglund Andersen (ETH Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland)

Experiments with more than 50 qubits have recently demonstrated the feasibility of performing quantum simulation and computation beyond the capabilities of classical computers. However, in the end, fault tolerance is needed to fully reach the immense potential which quantum computers are able to offer. Quantum error correction is a means to achieve fault tolerance, with the surface code being one of the most promising architectures to reach it. In this talk, I will present an experimental implementation of the smallest viable instance of a surface code, capable of repeatedly detecting any single error using seven superconducting qubits, four data qubits and three ancilla qubits [1]. We then repeatedly check for errors using the stabilizer readout and observe that the logical quantum state is preserved with a lifetime and coherence time longer than those of any of the constituent qubits when no errors are detected. Our demonstration of error detection with its resulting enhancement of the conditioned logical qubit coherence times in a 7-qubit surface code is an important step indicating a promising route towards the realization of quantum error correction in the surface code.

[1] Andersen et.al, arXiv:1912.09410 (2019)

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