Microwave control electrodes for scalable, parallel, single-qubit operations in a surface-electrode ion trap

TL;DR

This paper introduces a surface-electrode ion trap design with integrated microwave control electrodes enabling scalable, parallel single-qubit operations with minimal crosstalk, suitable for large quantum computing arrays.

Contribution

It presents a novel trap architecture with integrated microwave electrodes for precise, scalable qubit control and demonstrates a proof-of-principle device with low residual microwave fields.

Findings

Residual microwave field reduced to 0.5% without nulling

Crosstalk kept near 0.01% with nulling under realistic conditions

Fabrication of a two-zone electrode array using standard techniques

Abstract

We propose a surface ion trap design incorporating microwave control electrodes for near-field single-qubit control. The electrodes are arranged so as to provide arbitrary frequency, amplitude and polarization control of the microwave field in one trap zone, while a similar set of electrodes is used to null the residual microwave field in a neighbouring zone. The geometry is chosen to reduce the residual field to the 0.5% level without nulling fields; with nulling, the crosstalk may be kept close to the 0.01% level for realistic microwave amplitude and phase drift. Using standard photolithography and electroplating techniques, we have fabricated a proof-of-principle electrode array with two trapping zones. We discuss requirements for the microwave drive system and prospects for scalability to a large two-dimensional trap array.