Habilitationskolloquium:

Dr. Sven Herrmann
Universität  Bremen

The physics and hardware of superconducting quantum computing

Quantum computing is certainly one of the most fascinating and potentially most disruptive technologies of the proclaimed second quantum revolution. Research and development efforts have seen a tremendous boost in recent years, both in the public and the private sector. Yet, the development of a general purpose, fault-tolerant quantum computer remains a Herculean task for years to come.

In my talk I want to take the perspective of Asher Peres, a pioneer in quantum information theory, who once said “Quantum phenomena do not happen in Hilbert space, they happen in a laboratory”. In this spirit, I want to take a closer look at the physics and hardware of quantum computing. Given the vast diversity of implementations, I will limit this to one of the most advanced technologies today, quantum computing based on superconducting qubits.  I aim to give some basic insights into how these qubits are implemented, how they are addressed and manipulated and what are the experimental challenges that had to be solved to arrive at the present status. I conclude with an outlook on the challenges ahead, and comment on the pros and cons with respect to alternative realizations, such as trapped ion quantum computing.