Dr Jonathan Pritchard

Personal statement

Professor Jonathan Pritchard is an RAEng Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Experimental Quantum Optics and Photonics Group. He is leading work developing neutral atom quantum computing within the Experimental Quantum Optics and Photonics group. Through leadership of SQuAre, an EPSRC Prosperity Partnership with M Squared Lasers, his team have developed the UK’s first scalable platform for neutral atom quantum computing, including developing new protocols for high fidelity multi-qubit gates and demonstrating single-qubit gate operations below the threshold for fault tolerance on arrays of up to 225 qubits. This work forms the underpinning technology for Maxwell, a commercial neutral atom platform developed by M Squared Lasers. As part of a new RAEng Fellowship we are now working to explore routes to fault-tolerant quantum computing by developing a cryogenic dual-species platform for implementing quantum error correction.

Jonathan Pritchard obtained his PhD at the University of Durham performing pioneering experiments in the field of Rydberg quantum optics under the supervision of Stuart Adams including the first demonstration of a a new cooperative optical non-linearity arising from dipole-dipole interactions between Rydberg atoms, using electromagnetically induced transparency to convert the strong atomic interactions onto the optical field at the single photon level. He then spent time working in the group of Erling Riis at Strathclyde University developing inductively coupled ring traps for atom interferometry before moving to UW-Madison to develop hybrid systems coupling Rydberg atoms to superconducting circuits in the group of Mark Saffman. In 2015 he was awarded an EPSRC Quantum Technology Fellowship to start his own research group at the University of Strathclyde to develop neutral atom quantum computing platforms, in addition to activities exploring precision sensing using Rydberg atoms and quantum LIDAR.

For more details see his group page.