Steven Girvin
Yale University, CT·Physics
Quantum computers could solve some problems far beyond the reach of ordinary computers, but today's quantum hardware makes errors constantly. Building large machines that still work despite those errors, called fault-tolerant quantum computers, is a central challenge.
- Fields
Physics
Engineering
Computer Science
- Topics
quantum computing
quantum error correction
fault tolerance
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through May 2028
What they work on
- Design and deploy superconducting quantum hardware in which each logical qubit is one microwave photon shared between two long-lived resonators. This 'dual-rail' encoding turns photon loss into a detectable, flagged erasure error.
- Combine the dual-rail error-detecting code with a larger outer code, so that errors can be corrected efficiently because the erasure flags show where they occurred.
- Give external researchers access through an Application Programming Interface (API) to develop algorithms that use mid-circuit measurements and feedforward, where later steps depend on earlier measurement results.
- Co-design middleware with the research community, such as compilers that account for errors and efficient control flow, along with improved error-correction protocols for the testbed.
More about the research
One promising idea is to use qubits that signal when and where an error has happened. Errors with known locations, called erasures, are much easier to fix than hidden ones.
Why it matters
Errors are the main obstacle to useful quantum computers. Hardware that flags where errors occur could make error correction cheaper and bring practical, fault-tolerant machines closer. Researchers in algorithms, software and computer architecture would get hands-on access to such hardware. In the long run, this could speed progress toward quantum computers that outperform ordinary ones at computation and at simulating physical systems.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Angela Kou
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, IL·Physics·Early-career
Locate the origin of local, unpredictable defects in superconducting transmon qubits using a scanning microwave resonator probe that measures time-resolved qubit behavior.
Sonia Lopez Alarcon
Rochester Institute of Technology, NY·Computer Science
Train machine learning models to identify and synthesize qubit routing algorithms tailored to a specific quantum device and objective, including selection of optimal parameters and optimization functions.
Todd Brun
University of Southern California, CA·Physics
Develop weakly fault-tolerant quantum computing using error-detecting codes that store n–2 logical qubits in n physical qubits, detecting single faults and discarding runs that show errors, for use on near-term processors.
The school
Yale University: 73 labs on PI Pages, $1.5B a year on research, 438 research doctorates a year.
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