Dzmitry Matsukevich's Group |
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Dzmitry Matsukevich's Group |
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We use trapped Ytterbium ions to address a wide range of questions from quantum information processing and implementation of heat machines in the quantum regime, to precision measurements with atomic and molecular ions.
A traditional ion trap quantum processor uses internal states of the ions to store quantum states, and common motional modes of the ions to mediate interaction between these states. Here we explore an alternative approach where the quantum information is encoded in the mechanical motion of the ions, and the interaction between these states is induced by coupling these states to the mechanical oscillators.
Anharmonicity of the Coulomb interaction between ions induces nonlinear coupling between their modes of motion. We exploit this to demonstrate strong nonlinear interactions between harmonic oscillators at the level of single quanta and to explore applications of such coupling for quantum information processing and quantum simulations.
Thermodynamics is one of the oldest and well established branches of physics. However its relations with quantum mechanics is still the subject of active research. Due to perfect control of the internal and motional states of the trapped ions, it offers an attractive platform for the implementation of heat machines in the fully quantum regime. In our lab we are working on implementation of such thermodynamic machines that consist of only few ions and aim to answer questions: What is the smallest heat machine one can build? Can quantum effect increase its performance?
Our group studies the properties of single molecular ions for quantum information and precision measurements experiments. Molecular ions have the advantages of showing long storage times and long coherence times, thus dramatically reducing systematic errors. At the quantum mechanical level, molecular ions have a wide selection of motional, rovibrational, and electronic energy states that hinder the control, processing and readout of the information they carry. Our goal is the preparation, manipulation and detection of these energy states using quantum logic techniques.
