Title: Preserving Coherence in Rydberg Quantum Bits

R.S. Minns, M.R. Kutteruf, H. Zaidi, L. Ko and R.R. Jones

Abstract:

The effectiveness of decoherence suppression schemes is explored using quantum bits (qubits) stored in Li np Rydberg states. Following laser excitation, pulsed electric fields coherently control the electronic spin-orbit (SO) interaction, facilitating qubit creation, manipulation, and measurement. SO-coupling creates an approximate decoherence-free subspace for extending qubit storage times. However, sequences of fast NOT operations are found to be more effective, essentially eliminating dephasing over times comparable to the Rydberg spontaneous emission lifetime.

Status:Published Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 040504 (2006)