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.
Andrew Kortyna 