Jacob started his career in the quantum in Alex Kuzmich’s group at Georgia Tech where he worked on quantum optics experiments principally using trapped atomic Rubidium for coherent frequency conversion between optical and telecommunications frequencies. His duties there also lead him work on Thorium ion traps before joining Rob Schoelkopf’s group in June 2011.
At Yale, Jacob worked on how to best implement two-qubit “teleported” gates between non-interacting logical qubits. As experimental systems become more complex and work their way up toward a quantum computer-like system, they require quantum error correction, which calls for subtle measurements of four, five, or even more qubits. To solve this challenge, Jacob and his colleagues have develop a better architecture that exhibits excellent coherence times while still allowing high-fidelity control and measurement. The architecture allows to couple four qubits in such a way that researchers can individually measure one without perturb the others. Their algorithm can then measure different properties of our three qubits.
Jacob quantitatively characterized each of these measurements, looking at both their accuracy as detectors and the fidelity of the quantum backaction (determination of the quantum state after performing a measurement, since the measurement itself will corrupt the state), bringing his team one step closer to a usable quantum computer.
After graduation (he will defend his thesis on Thursday, May 4, 2017), Jacob will join HRL Laboratories in Malibu CA where he will leaving superconducting quantum computing for the semiconducting quantum computing world! YQI wishes him the best for this transition!
Fun fact
Jacob spends a surprising amount of time arguing online with Chinese children while playing the game of go.
Favorite publication
Hatridge, M., Shankar, S., Mirrahimi, M., Schackert, F., Geerlings, K., Brecht, T., Sliwa, K.M., Abdo, B., Frunzio, L., Girvin, S.M., Schoelkopf, R.J., Devoret, M.H., Quantum back-action of an individual variable-strength measurement, Science, 339 (6116), pp. 178-181 (2013)
Latest publication
Reagor, M., Pfaff, W., Axline, C., Heeres, R.W., Ofek, N., Sliwa, K., Holland, E., Wang, C., Blumoff, J., Chou, K., Hatridge, M.J., Frunzio, L., Devoret, M.H., Jiang, L., Schoelkopf, R.J., Quantum memory with millisecond coherence in circuit QED, Physical Review B - Condensed Matter and Materials Physics, 94 (1) (2016)
Most cited
Sun, L., Petrenko, A., Leghtas, Z., Vlastakis, B., Kirchmair, G., Sliwa, K.M., Narla, A., Hatridge, M., Shankar, S., Blumoff, J., Frunzio, L., Mirrahimi, M., Devoret, M.H., Schoelkopf, R.J., Tracking photon jumps with repeated quantum non-demolition parity measurements, Nature, 511 (7510), pp. 444-448 (2014)