Quantum computers promise to transform scientific computation and pose a challenge to public-key cryptosystems.  Industrial efforts to build quantum computers are creating more sophisticated devices, but there remains a significant gap between current machines and machines that will solve challenging, useful problems. I will present an overview of the state of quantum computation and consider how research at universities can accelerate the development of this technology.

Professor Ken Brown is the Michael J. Fitzpatrick Distinguished Professor of Engineering in Electrical and Computer Engineering at Duke University and Director of the Duke Quantum Center. His research focuses on controlling quantum systems to enable robust quantum computing, spanning quantum error correction, quantum control, and quantum computer architecture, with a particular emphasis on ion-trap quantum computing.

20th century started with the discovery of quantum physics, the laws of nature at the subatomic scale, and the scientific community made significant progress understanding the strange and counterintuitive behavior of quantum systems. Through the turn of the century, scientists started to develop technologies to control these quantum systems at will, leading to the ideas and development of new information processing approaches embracing quantum physics. The last decade has seen serious efforts to commercialize quantum computing, establishing an early quantum computing industry. In this talk I will describe the foundations of quantum computing, and our approach of building practical quantum computers using atomic ions trapped using electric fields. Through this example, I will discuss the process of how new scientific discoveries can turn into new technological opportunity by disruptive innovation, and more disruptive opportunities in quantum technologies ahead.

This event starts at 3:30pm with refreshments, followed at 3:45pm by a short presentation by Hansub Hwang (postdoc, Mark Saffman group) titled "Towards quantum networking with dual species neutral atoms". The invited presentation starts at 4pm.