QuRAM-Mech: Quantum RAM with Mechanical Oscillators
Name of applicant
Mads Bjerregaard Kristensen
Title
Postdoctoral Fellow
Institution
Chalmers University of Technology
Amount
DKK 900,000
Year
2024
Type of grant
Internationalisation Fellowships
What?
Just like regular computers, and indeed any information processing device, emerging quantum computers will require memory in order to realise their expansive promise. In this project I will develop a novel working memory for a quantum computer akin to RAM in regular computers, storing quantum information in the motion of a very slowly decaying, nanoscale mechanical resonator.
Why?
We are currently in an era reminiscent of the development of the computer - this time the technological breakthrough concerns harnessing quantum physics for computation. Already, proposed utilities enabled by a fully-fledged quantum computer range from faster design of new medicine and vaccines, over more efficient energy storage for a post-fossil fuel world, to a new cyber-security paradigm.
How?
I will combine recent advances in mechanical resonator design, materials, and functionalisation into a novel device, which enables coupling between a long-lived GHz-frequency mode of a nano-mechanical resonator and a superconducting circuit. This circuit will be composed of a microwave cavity to address the mechanical oscillator, and a qubit, whose state the mechanical resonator can store.