Postgraduate research opportunities Four-wave mixing and memories in atomic vapours
ApplyKey facts
- Opens: Friday 1 November 2024
- Deadline: Friday 7 February 2025
- Number of places: 1
- Duration: 4 years
- Funding: Equipment costs, Home fee, International fee, Stipend, Travel costs
Overview
This 4-year PhD project is part of the EPSRC-funded Centre for Doctoral Training in Applied Quantum Technologies. As well as completing a PhD project in an aligned topic, CDT students will also benefit from technical and skills-based training in all aspects of quantum technologies.Eligibility
All applicants must have or expect to obtain a first-class or second-class honours degree, or equivalent, in a relevant subject OR have or expect to obtain a Masters degree.

Project Details
This project seeks to develop a dual-species platform for quantum computing and simulation with neutral atoms, providing a route to implementing active quantum error correction essential for future scaling beyond 100 qubits. This hardware will simultaneously provide a versatile platform for analogue computing and simulation due to the ability to independently control inter- and intra-species interactions, providing a route to performing studies of complex many-body physics as well as increasing the diversity of real-world optimisation problems that can be tackled using neutral atom hardware.
Over the last decade, neutral atoms have emerged as one of the most promising platforms for quantum information processing, with a major advantage over competing technologies arising from the ability to scale to large numbers of identical qubits as required for performing practical quantum computing. To date, several experiments have demonstrated trapping of qubit arrays with > 256 qubits. To couple neutral atom qubits, highly excited Rydberg states are used which have extremely large electric dipole moments giving rise to strong and controllable interactions. These can be exploited to perform high fidelity multi-qubit gates, with F>0.95 demonstrated for two qubits and intrinsic fidelities of F>0.995 for multi-qubit gates, or for performing quantum simulation of controllable spin models as required for studying materials or solving optimisation problems.
Whilst there has been significant experimental progress, a number of challenges currently limit scaling to larger array sizes for hardware based on a single atomic species. The first arises from finite vacuum lifetime due to collisions with background atoms ejecting atoms from the trap. For room temperature operation, this is typically 10s for 1 atom but means only 10ms for a 1000 atom array. This can be solved by moving to operation at cryogenic temperatures down to 4 K where the cold surfaces cause significant increase in lifetime upwards of > 6000 seconds meaning recovery of times > 6s even for 1000 atoms. The next issue lies in the long readout time for neutral atom qubits, typically requiring 10-50 ms to readout qubit states. With a single species, the cross-talk and scattered light mean readout is destructive across the whole array, with no clear pathway to performing local measurements required for error correction to reach fault tolerant operation.
Further information
EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Applied Quantum Technologies
Funding details
The funding provided for these fully funded PhDs will include four years of both tuition fees and monthly stipend payments.
Fully funded studentships are available at the UK home rate and international rate.
Home Students
To be eligible for a fully funded UK home studentship you must:
- Be a UK national or UK/EU dual national or non-UK national with settled status / pre-settled status / indefinite leave to remain / indefinite leave to enter / discretionary leave / EU migrant worker in the UK or non-UK national with a claim for asylum or the family member of such a person, and
- Have ordinary residence in the UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man or British Overseas Territory, at the Point of Application, and
- Have three years residency in the UK, Channel Islands, Isle of Man, British Overseas Territory or EEA before the relevant date of application unless residency outside of the UK/ EEA has been of a temporary nature only and of a period less than six years
International Students
There are a limited number of international studentships for exceptional candidates who do not meet the UK home status mentioned above.
Candidates should check if they require an ATAS certificate; eligible nationalities are listed on GOV.UK (UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office).
International candidates whose first language is not English must demonstrate their proficiency in the English language with IELTS certification or equivalent.
While there is no funding in place for opportunities marked "unfunded", there are lots of different options to help you fund postgraduate research. Visit funding your postgraduate research for links to government grants, research councils funding and more, that could be available.
Supervisors

Primary Supervisor: Professor Jonathan Pritchard
Additional Supervisor: Professor Paul Griffin
Apply
Applications should be submitted via the AQT website in the first instance.
Number of places: 1
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