Andrew Kortyna

Atomic Clock Use and Benefits

Boulder, Colorado, native Andrew Kortyna earned his Ph.D. from Wesleyan University. Andrew Kortyna works as a physicist at ColdQuanta, Inc., where he is conducting research into cold-atom-based atomic clocks.

Atomic clocks use the frequencies of atoms, most commonly cesium and rubidium, to provide a highly accurate time. Atomic clocks are used for high-accuracy navigation. For example, in space they can be used for calculating a spaceship’s trajectory with high precision. They are better than quartz crystal clocks as they are more stable, with the ability to measure time at the billionths of a second precision, unlike commonly used quartz crystal clocks that are more unstable and have errors on the millisecond time scale. Time errors in space can be disastrous, as one millisecond can result in a distance error of over 180 miles.

Atomic clocks are stable because they use the steady oscillation of atoms to correct for the inherent instabilities of quartz crystal oscillators. NASA’s atomic clocks make time errors of one microsecond in 10 years. This means that in 10 million years, the atomic clock will only make an error of one second, which helps NASA track a spaceship’s location with high preciseness.

ColdQuanta Launches 100-Qubit Quantum Computer on Cold Atom Principles

Andrew Kortyna is a physics researcher in Colorado with a background in areas ranging from optimization of fuel combustion to astrochemistry. One focus for Andrew Kortyna has been the atomic clock project at ColdQuanta, a startup that focuses on cold atom quantum technologies. This involves the manipulation of ultracold atoms at near absolute zero with lasers, such that coherent quantum processes are enabled.

In July 2021 ColdQuanta announced the launch of Hilbert, a gate-based 100-qubit quantum computer relying on such principles. The neutral-atom based quantum processor operates at ultracold temperatures (less than 0.001K), as they are protected from environmental noise and thus retain quantum coherence.

The concept of cooling down particles to better control them is already an accepted approach, with IBM and Google maintaining superconducting processors utilizing qubits (the basic quantum information unit) that are brought down to nearly zero kelvin (less than -272C or 1K) temperatures in massive dilution refrigerators.

Atoms are essentially treated as qubits by ColdQuanta, with some important distinctions. First, atoms are 10,000 times smaller than superconducting qubits, which means they can be packed into a much smaller space. A superconducting quantum processor that would otherwise take up square meters can fit into a few square millimeters, or about the size of the head of a nail. In addition, the atoms are cooled to a microkelvin level that is about 1,000 times colder than that achieved through the superconducting method. Instead of large refrigerators, atoms are trapped and cooled using lasers, with a combination of microwave pulses and lasers arranging them into gates that constitute quantum circuits.

The end result is a cold atom quantum computing system that is extremely scalable and performs to the standards set by advanced qubit quantum processors. The engineering challenge at hand is how to overcome current limitations to Hilbert’s size. Testbeds are used to determine just how laser applications must change as qubit counts experience an “orders-of-magnitude” increase.