Quantum control protocols could lead to more accurate, larger scale quantum computations

A protocol for controlling quantum information pioneered by researchers at UC Santa Barbara, the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience in Delft, the Netherlands, and the Ames Laboratory at Iowa State University could open the door to larger-scale, more accurate quantum computations. Their findings, in a paper titled "Decoherence-protected quantum gates for a hybrid solid-state spin register," are published in the current issue of the journal Nature. he research team, which also included members from the University of Southern California, showed that by precisely synchronizing the rotations of an electron spin with the rotation of a nearby nuclear spin, they could realize dynamical protection of both qubits from the environment while maintaining the interactions between the two spins that are necessary for quantum information processing. As a proof of principle, the researchers demonstrated the high-fidelity execution of a quantum search algorithm using this two-qubit system. Quantum search algorithms, if executed on a larger number of qubits, could provide search results of certain databases considerably faster than search algorithms performed on a classical computer.