Abstract
Just as classical information technology rests on a foundation built of interconnected information-processing systems, quantum information technology (QIT) must do the same. A critical component of such systems is the interconnect, a device or process that allows transfer of information between disparate physical media, for example, semiconductor electronics, individual atoms, light pulses in optical fiber, or microwave fields. While interconnects have been well engineered for decades in the realm of classical information technology, quantum interconnects (QuICs) present special challenges, as they must allow the transfer of fragile quantum states between different physical parts or degrees of freedom of the system. The diversity of QIT platforms (superconducting, atomic, solid-state color center, optical, etc.) that will form a quantum internet poses additional challenges. As quantum systems scale to larger size, the quantum interconnect bottleneck is imminent, and is emerging as a grand challenge for QIT. For these reasons, it is the position of the community represented by participants of the NSF workshop on Quantum Interconnects that accelerating QuIC research is crucial for sustained development of a national quantum science and technology program. Given the diversity of QIT platforms, materials used, applications, and infrastructure required, a convergent research program including partnership between academia, industry and national laboratories is required. This document is a summary from a U.S. National Science Foundation supported workshop held on 31 October - 1 November 2019 in Alexandria, VA. Attendees were charged to identify the scientific and community needs, opportunities, and significant challenges for quantum interconnects over the next 2-5 years.
Highlights
As quantum technology progresses to real-world applications, a major identified hurdle needs to be overcome: the development of quantum interconnects (QuICs)
Modern high-performance classical computers and data centers are constructed by connecting thousands of computers, memories, and storage units into an interconnected network, over which complex computational tasks are distributed. These considerations have motivated the vision of a quantum modular architecture, in which separate quantum systems are incorporated into a quantum network via quantum interconnects [4,6]
(4) Efficient measurements: all three generations of quantum repeaters (QRs) can be greatly enhanced by including efficient quantum nondemolition (QND) measurements [79]—a measurement that records the successful passing of a photon without observing it or changing its quantum state
Summary
A quantum science and technology revolution is currently in the making, which is widely expected to bring a myriad of scientific and societal benefits. Commensurate with this promise, large challenges exist in seeing the vision become a reality, one of which is the engineering of an essential class of components of any quantum information system—quantum interconnects (QuICs). The reach of secure fiber-based quantum networks, and the communication rates that they currently allow, are severely limited by the optical losses in the existing quantum interconnects (transmission drops exponentially in conventional optical fibers). The consensus of the participants is that there are concepts and technologies whose development warrants a large, synergistic, and convergent effort involving a range of expertise on a national scale
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