Integration of the OMG architecture with ion-based quantum computers

The optical-metastable-ground (OMG) architecture has emerged as a promising architecture for quantum computation based on arrays of trapped ions or neutral atoms. By making use of long-lived metastable states to which qubits can be coherently shelved, this architecture can enable mid-circuit partial measurement of the qubit register without spatially separating the readout ancillae and sympathetic cooling without an additional atomic species.

The OMG architecture has typically been implemented using site-resolved shelving, which imposes the additional technical cost of either imaging the shelving beam onto individual qubits or using a second individually-addressed beam to light-shift selected qubits relative to resonance with the globally-applied shelving beam. Here, we demonstrate that the same functionality can be achieved with a global shelving operation plus single-qubit rotations within the ground and metastable manifolds. In particular, this approach makes the OMG architecture well suited to integration with IonQ’s quantum computers based on arrays of trapped Ba+ ions addressed by steerable qubit manipulation beams. We present the latest results of integrating the OMG architecture into IonQ’s newest generation of quantum computers.