Anirudh Narla first entered the quantum world when he did his undergrad in Engineering Physics at UC Berkeley in Irfan Siddiqi’s group where he build a pump-free dry dilution-fridge and its associated control electronics and software, as well as some microwave devices for use with their experiments. He then joined Michel Devoret’s group in 2011 where his research focused on understanding how to measure the superconducting quantum circuits that are built at Yale.
Measurements are an important aspect in quantum computation and communication (and any quantum technology in general), forming the basis for a wide range of operations. Performing these measurements requires using what we refer to as flying qubits that can interact with our quantum circuit and then be amplified and measured by room-temperature electronics. Understanding how to generate, control and amplify these flying qubits is one big vein of his research. The other is to use these flying qubits as carriers of quantum information between remote quantum circuits to enable interactions between them. This is a very powerful tool in building distributed quantum systems.
The coolest thing for Anirudh would be to actually see technology and applications relying on entanglement. It’s a uniquely quantum property and to be able to generate and control it, especially over long distances, is mind boggling. It would be amazing if we could realize some of the proposals for quantum communication or computation or sensor systems.
After defending his thesis on Thursday August 31 2017, Anirudh will be trying his hand at industry and will join
Quantum Circuit Inc, the startup co-founded by YQI members Michel Devoret, Luigi Frunzio, and YQI director Robert Schoelkopf.
We wish you all the best in his new venture!
Fun fact
Anirudh is bad at picking single fun fact: “This is a hard one. Although I’m born in India, I’ve spent more time away (living in Thailand and the US) than living there. I speak 5 different languages (6 if you count English as two, since my accent changes automatically depending on who I’m speaking with). I enjoy cooking, trying new recipes and food, especially when traveling”.
Favorite publication
Microwave Engineering by David M. Pozar
Latest publication
Frattini, N.E., Vool, U., Shankar, S., Narla, A., Sliwa, K.M., Devoret, M.H., 3-wave mixing Josephson dipole element, Applied Physics Letters, 110 (22), art. no. 222603 (2017)
Most cited
Shankar, S., Hatridge, M., Leghtas, Z., Sliwa, K.M., Narla, A., Vool, U., Girvin, S.M., Frunzio, L., Mirrahimi, M., Devoret, M.H., Autonomously stabilized entanglement between two superconducting quantum bits, Nature, 504 (7480), pp. 419-422 (2013)
