A Study and Design on the Architecture of Quantum Computers

The study of quantum information
science has expanded rapidly since the
theoretical model of quantum computers
were introduced in the early 1980's [1-3]. In
this project, we study the architecture of
quantum computing systems from the circuit
point of view and demonstrate physical
implementations using nuclear magnetic
resonance (NMR) technology.
To implement a quantum computer, it is
necessary to develop an efficient quantum
circuit synthesis method. Since the quantum
bit (which is the basic component of a
quantum circuit) is very expensive, a good
quantum circuit has to be designed in a
cost-effective way and, at the same time, it
must be easy for implementation. In this
project we describe a simplification method
of quantum Boolean circuits using a
tabulation algorithm. This method performs
AND and XOR function simplification
simultaneously. After a quantum Boolean
circuit is simplified, we verify the circuits to
confirm its function is correct.
With the capability of performing
quantum circuit synthesis, we report an
experimental realization of quantum switch
using nuclear spins and magnetic resonant
pulses in this project. The nuclear spins of
1H and 13C in carbon-13 labeled chloroform
are used to carry the information. Then
nuclear magnetic resonance pulses are
applied to perform quantum operations on a
two-qubit quantum computer prototype. Note
that, an ideal quantum computation system is
independent of the underlying physical implementation, as long as the information
carrier (qubit) can be manipulated according
to quantum mechanics.