Researchers have gotten a step closer to creating a quantum computer demonstrating a new reliability in a five-qubit array.
Quantum computers could be millions of times more powerful than today's devices, a University of California, Santa Barbera news release reported.
"Quantum hardware is very, very unreliable compared to classical hardware," Austin Fowler, a staff scientist in the physics department, whose theoretical work inspired the experiments of the Martinis Group, said in the news release. "Even the best state-of-the-art hardware is unreliable."
The configuration of the team's array provided "flexibility of geometry at the superconductive level," the news release reported. This allowed the researchers to create cross shaped qubits, dubbed Xmons. Superconductivity is achieved when materials are cooled to a level in which removes both the electric and magnetic fields. The quibits were arranged in a row of five.
"Motivated by theoretical work, we started really thinking seriously about what we had to do to move forward," John Martinis, a professor in UCSB's Department of Physics, said in the news release. "It took us a while to figure out how simple it was, and simple, in the end, was really the best."
"If you want to build a quantum computer, you need a two-dimensional array of such qubits, and the error rate should be below 1 percent," said Fowler. "If we can get one order of magnitude lower - in the area of 10-3 or 1 in 1,000 for all our gates - our qubits could become commercially viable. But there are more issues that need to be solved. There are more frequencies to worry about and it's certainly true that it's more complex. However, the physics is no different," he said.
The Fowler's surface code provided the researchers with guidance as to how to place the quibits on the surface.
"All of a sudden, we knew exactly what it was we wanted to build because of the surface code," Martinis said. "It took a lot of hard work to figure out how to piece the qubits together and control them properly. The amazing thing is that all of our hopes of how well it would work came true."
