David Ibberson

Hitachi Cambridge, Cohort 3

Hitachi first collaborated with the Quantum Engineering CDT at the Quantum Innovation Lab in 2017, the outcome of which was the proposal for a 3-month student project (abstract below). David contacted Dr. M. Fernando Gonzalez Zalba (Head of Quantum Information at Hitachi Cambridge) about this project and a placement was arranged, with Hitachi contributing funds. During the placement David collected data which led to his first publication.

Having enjoyed working at Hitachi, David prepared a plan for a full PhD project with Dr Fernando Gonzalez Zalba, to develop dispersive readout of spin qubits in semiconductor devices and illuminate the factors that influence fidelity. Most recently they have broken the record for the minimum readout time and achieved frequency multiplexing. These are important steps towards Hitachi’s long-term goal to demonstrate the viability of SiMOS as a platform for quantum computing. David is currently in Sydney for a placement at the Microsoft Quantum lab after which he intends to continue his career in developing scalable quantum computing systems.

Project B Abstract

Quantum computers promise to be exponentially more efficient that conventional computers when tackling a specific set of problems such as factorization, data base searches or simulations of quantum systems. Hence, large corporations around the world are racing to be the first to build the hardware of a computer that could run such quantum algorithms because of the major social and economic impacts that will have in our society.
However, scaling up to a large number of qubits remains the defining challenge in the field of quantum computing. At present, scientists have demonstrated at most 10-15 qubits working together, however even the simplest versions of the quantum algorithms stated previously require at least 100-200 qubits. If error-correction protocols are incorporated, the estimated figure rises to a million qubits. In this project, you will focus on a radical new way of making qubits. You will use conventional silicon transistors - the workhorse of the semiconductor industry - to develop scalable electron spin qubits in silicon. If successful this will mean a revolution in the way quantum computers will be manufactured in the future and could enable building large scale quantum circuits using the already existing multi-billion fabrication platform that silicon technology offers, substantially reducing the cost of adoption.
There will be particular opportunities to perform a significant amount of your research in the Hitachi Cambridge Laboratory, offering industrial/commercial perspectives on R&D in quantum computing.