Protection of quantum information in small clusters of qubits

Modern digital electronics has reached an important junction. The traditional way of delivering ever stronger computing power by simple miniaturisation is no longer possible. One potential avenue for future electronics lies in Quantum Computing which can potentially deliver enormous computational power for certain tasks. Over the last decade, improvements in the materials, design and new architectures for realising qubits have led to an impressive increase of their coherence time. Yet, further improving coherence is imperative to achieving a fault tolerant quantum processor. We propose an approach to enhance qubit coherence by orders of magnitude, based on storing quantum information in the lowest energy states of short qubit chains. This encoding is protected from major sources of decoherence due to a high degree of spatial symmetry supported by long range interactions. In this project we will apply these principles to both Rydberg atoms and superconducting circuits which are architectures that have the required properties to support this approach. The project will also develop protocols to couple, control, readout and benchmark the qubits. Finally, this project aims to reach a level of technological maturity such that this approach will have near term applications in today's quantum computing industry.