16. Ion-Trap Quantum Computing: Christof Wunderlich

Show notes

In this episode Chris introduces Mira Sharma, his co-host of the show. Mira is a PhD student at IQI in David DiVincenzo's group. This is their first co-hosted episode, so it is an experiment. For today’s episode Chris and Mira left the cluster bubble on a roadtrip to Siegen where they met Christof Wunderlich. Before recording, they were able to visit Christof's lab where it was fascinating to see the ion traps and have an interactive introduction to trapped ion QC. They also visited EleQtron, Germany’s first QC start-up.

00:00:00 Intro 00:01:42 Welcome Christof 00:02:17 The decision to become a physicist 00:05:25 Undergraduate studies on nonlinear dynamics 00:07:30 Changing topics to intense laser fields during the PhD studies [correction: note that at 00:11:49 Christof mentions an inaccuate date for the publication of Shor's algorithm. It should state 1994 not 1992.] 00:14:00 Switching to single quantum systems during the postdoc 00:20:30 From cavity QED experiments to trapped ions 00:30:00 Mastering trapped ions for quantum computing purposes 00:47:56 About MAGIC 00:53:19 Transitioning from Hamburg via Dublin to Siegen 00:56:30 On becoming an entrepreneur and founding Eleqtron