Scientists from the Russian Quantum Center and the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences presented a prototype of a quantum ion computer.

The researchers developed a system of four qubits without increasing the number of ions. Instead, they used an original technology to scale quantum processors with multilevel information carriers - qubits.

In classical computing devices, all information is decomposed into bits - 0 or 1. But in quantum ones, the smallest unit of information is a quantum bit (cubit), which is capable of being in both states simultaneously - 0 and 1, Rosatom's press service explains.

The number of states a quantum processor can be in increases rapidly with the number of qubits, due to the ability to bind them together. This feature allows quantum devices to solve various computational tasks orders of magnitude faster than classical computers and supercomputers

However, there are also extended versions of qubits - qubits capable of being in three states simultaneously (kutrites) or in four states (kukwarts). Russian physicists built a system of two kukwarts, which is fully equivalent to four qubits.

"During the experiment, the researchers captured 2 ions in a vacuum chamber and used a laser to perform a set of one-qubit operations over them, a two-qubit operation within a qudit, and a 2-particle entanglement operation (Möllmer-Sorenson). In this way we have been able to show that the quality of operations between qubits linked in a quadic is superior to that of operations on independent particles, which will provide better quality of implementation of quantum algorithms in the future," the press service said.

This year Rosatom has spent more than six billion rubles for the development of quantum technologies and the creation of the necessary research infrastructure, which were purchased equipment and staffed the first laboratory. Overall more than 23 billion rubles of budgetary and extra-budgetary funds will be allocated to create a quantum computer until 2024, said director of digitization at Rosatom Ekaterina Solntseva.

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Author: Ksenia Gustova