NIST scientist Emanuel Knill has proposed a new architecture for quantum computing that could make building quantum computers easier than previously thought. The architecture relies on a pyramid-style hierarchy of qubits made of smaller and simpler building blocks than envisioned before, and uses teleportation to continuously double-check the accuracy of qubit values.
The new architecture could allow quantum computers to produce reliable results even if individual logic operations made errors as often as 3 percent of the time – performance levels already achieved in NIST laboratories with qubits based on ions. The proposed architecture could tolerate several hundred times more errors than scientists had generally thought acceptable.
Knill’s methods for detecting and correcting errors rely heavily on teleportation, which enables scientists to measure how errors have affected a qubit’s value while transferring the stored information to other qubits not yet perturbed by errors. The original qubit’s quantum properties would be teleported to another qubit as the original qubit is measured.
The research was funded in part by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Keywords: Qubits, Quantum States, Teleportation, Error Correction, Quantum Computing Architecture
