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A new light on quantum computing

2019 Dr Peter Domachuk Memorial Lecture

Professor Chris Monroe is one of the world's foremost quantum technologists and he explains the rise of what promises to be a revolutionary technology of the 21st century.

Professor Chris Monroe hails from the University of Maryland and is the founder of IonQ, an emerging quantum computing company that takes a unique approach and is challenging corporate giants, such as IBM and Google, in the race to build a working quantum machine.

In his talk 'Quantum computing with atoms', Chris shares how he and IonQ use high-precision laser light to control networks of entangled trapped atomic ions to build machines that will have the ability to solve problems beyond the most powerful supercomputers.

Chris will be joined by Associate Professor Maryanne Large to explore how quantum computing will impact our lives, from disruption to cryptography, finance and shopping to personalised medicine, redesigned industrial chemistry and a revolution in materials science.

The Dr Peter Domachuk Memorial Lecture was established in honour of Peter’s outstanding contribution and commitment to optofluidics and biophotonics research. This event is co-presented with the Institute of Photonics and Optical Science (IPOS) and the School of Physics.

The University of Sydney is a global centre for research into quantum computing. It is home to the Sydney Microsoft Quantum Laboratory and Sydney Nano Institute. The University is a partner in the city-wide Sydney Quantum Academy, which is backed by the NSW Government.

This event was held on Wednesday 2 October, 2019 at the University of Sydney.

The speakers

Professor Christopher Monroe, University of Maryland

Christopher is a leading atomic physicist and quantum information scientist. He is a Distinguished Professor and Bice Zorn Professor of Physics at the University of Maryland and CEO and co-founder of IonQ, Inc, a start-up that makes full-stack quantum computers.

He demonstrated the first quantum gate realised in any system in the 1990s, and at the University of Michigan and the University of Maryland he discovered new ways to scale trapped ion qubits and simplify their control with semiconductor chip traps, simplified lasers, and photonic interfaces for long-distance entanglement.

He received the American Physical Society I. I. Rabi Prize and the Arthur Schawlow Laser Science Prize, and has been elected into the National Academy of Sciences.

Associate Professor Maryanne Large, University of Sydney

Maryanne is an Associate Professor in the School of Physics. She studied at the University of Sydney and was awarded a PhD from Trinity College Dublin. After graduating she won a Marie Curie Fellowship to do postdoctoral studies at the CEA-Leti near Paris (Commissariat à l’Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives), and then worked as a lecturer at the Dublin Institute of Technology. Upon her return to Australia in 2000, worked as a Research Fellow and Deputy Director of the Optical Fibre Technology Centre (then part of the Australian Photonics CRC). Her research areas are photonics and materials science. Most of her career has been highly interdisciplinary and at the interface of research and industry.

Maryanne is an advocate for strong culture of innovation within the University. She has established a post-graduate course (“Inventing the Future”), which links business and design students to technically focussed (Science and Engineering) students, requiring them to work together in teams. The program has resulted in a number of highly successful start-up companies and is currently developing a team-based undergraduate project unit in innovation.