HQAN Exchange visit to Duke Quantum Center Laboratory

Will Christopherson, a Ph.D. student in the Brian DeMarco Research Group, recently took a trip supported by the HQAN Student Exchange Program to the Duke Quantum Center. His trip was organized with the intention of seeing first-hand how a long-established ion-trapping group developed and uses its control system. This is one central component of the DeMarco Group's lab that interfaces with many other devices and must be accessible to every group member for their experiments. The general hardware system, ARTIQ, is the system used at Duke and by many other ion-trapping groups. Christopherson's visit was meant to let him absorb as much from the experience with the system as possible. As the phase of continuously working on ion control is approached, it's increasingly important to have a set structure for running experiments with ARTIQ, and a method for integrating additional hardware and code. 
 

Only being at Duke for a day, Christopherson was worried his time at the DQC (Duke Quantum Center) labs would be limited. The students there helped him overcome this worry by spending the entire day showing him everything from lab-scale hardware methods down to strategies for building a code base that could adapt new hardware, methods and users. Christopherson discussed, with the students, solutions for the synchronization of internal and peripheral devices, building device networks, fast real-time decision-making methods and a long list of technical advice topics from their experience. It was his first time seeing fully built ion trap experiments in action, sparking many questions for him with relevance to his group's coming stages of building up ion control. Christopherson described the trip as exciting and fast-paced, saying it gave him immediately actionable direction for practically every aspect of his group's control system and experiment more broadly. Expressing gratitude for his experience, Christopherson says it was a joy to meet the students and faculty at DOC. He is intent on on reflecting the information shared with him in further lab developments. 

Christopherson's visit was funded by the HQAN Student Exchange Program, which is open to all HQAN-affiliated graduate students and post-docs. Those interested in visiting an HQAN-affiliated visit to support their research should contact their HQAN faculty advisors and refer questions to HQAN's outreach coordinator Mallory Conlon.  

Reporting for this article was conducted by Maggie Knutte in the IQUIST Communications Office.