Investigation of qubit isolation in a rare-earth quantum computer

Abstract

The general aim of this project was to contribute to the work being done at the Laser Physics Centre in the Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering in their quest to build a quantum computer. Perturbations on the decoherence time were studied with a number of different methods. These exerimental methods were also theoretically modeled. It was found that in no cases was there a clear change above the uncertainties set by experimental errors, however upper bounds were able to be determined. Optical perturbation of the crystal was found to have an upper interaction strength of 40Hz, while the upper bound on the electric dipole-dipole interaction is 2Hz. Raman echoes were achieved for the first time in this lab and have the longest reported coherence time due to an applied magnetic field.