Recent results in trapped-ion quantum computing at NIST

We review recent experiments on entanglement, Bell's inequality, and decoherence-free subspaces in a quantum register of trapped {9Be+} ions. We have demonstrated entanglement of up to four ions using the technique of Molmer and Sorensen. This method produces the state ({|\uparrow\uparrow\rangle}+{|\downarrow\downarrow\rangle})/\sqrt{2} for two ions and the state ({\downarrow}{\downarrow}{\downarrow}{\downarrow} \rangle + | {\uparrow}{\uparrow}{\uparrow}{\uparrow} \rangle)/\sqrt{2} for four ions. We generate the entanglement deterministically in each shot of the experiment. Measurements on the two-ion entangled state violates Bell's inequality at the 8\sigma level. Because of the high detector efficiency of our apparatus, this experiment closes the detector loophole for Bell's inequality measurements for the first time. This measurement is also the first violation of Bell's inequality by massive particles that does not implicitly assume results from quantum mechanics. Finally, we have demonstrated reversible encoding of an arbitrary qubit, originally contained in one ion, into a decoherence-free subspace (DFS) of two ions. The DFS-encoded qubit resists applied collective dephasing noise and retains coherence under ambient conditions 3.6 times longer than does an unencoded qubit. The encoding method, which uses single-ion gates and the two-ion entangling gate, demonstrates all the elements required for two-qubit universal quantum logic.