So far, quantum computers have been one-of-a-kind devices that fill entire laboratories. Now, physicists at the University of Innsbruck have built a prototype of an ion trap quantum computer that can be used in industry. It fits into two 19-inch server racks like those found in data centers throughout the world.

A quantum version of the internet, built of interacting quantum light and matter, would enable powerful new capabilities for science and technology. A key requirement for the quantum internet is the ability to efficiently collect photons that are emitted by and entangled with quantum matter. In our paper (link) published in PRX Quantum, we report on a significant increase in the efficiency of entangled photon collection from a leading example of quantum matter: a single trapped atomic ion. The achieved performance opens up new near-term methods for engineering and studying many-particle quantum states.

Welcome Claire! Claire Edmunds completed her Ph.D. at the University of Sydney in Australia working on characterising and reducing errors in trapped ion quantum devices. Claire has received an ESQ fellowship from the Austrian Academy of Sciences to work here at the University of Innsbruck, where she will integrate these techniques into the Linear Trap quantum simulation and information experiments.

Congratulations, Christine!

Thesis Title: A quantum simulator with long strings of trapped ions

We welcome Yannick to the Barium experiment! He studied physics at Erlangen and worked during his Master's thesis on a Quantum Communication platform based on coherent CV-QKD. Here in Innsbruck, his Ph.D. project will focus on fundamental Quantum Optics to study the interaction between a trapped ion and the single photons emitted by the ion in the presence of a hemispherical mirror.

Simon joined the group for his Master project where he will work on phase-modulated entangling gates for the AQTION setup. These promise to make entangling gates more robust to errors associated to fluctuating laser frequency and amplitude.

Armin joined the group for his Master project where he will set up a new 729nm laser system.

Anders did his master's degree at Stockholm University in the group of Markus Hennrich working on improving the coherence times of ions. In Innsbruck he will join the Quantum Information team on the LinTrap setup.

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Stefan did his PhD at the TU Vienna in the group of Arno Rauschenbeutel. There he worked on a project showing theoretically end experimentally that the polarization state of light emitted by subwavelength emitters can give rise to a fundamental error in position measurements of the emitters. This work was published together with our former group members Gabriel, Daniel and Yves.

He is now joining the ERC project QCosmo from Philipp Schindler where he will apply quantum computing techniques to investigate polyatomic molecular ions.