IonQ Partners with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to Create a Reliable Source of Ba...

Chain of 35 Barium Ions in an IonQ system. Credit: IonQ

IonQ had announced last December that its next generation quantum computers would use Barium ions for its qubits instead of the Ytterbium ions it has been using. At the time, they cited a number of reasons for doing so including lower error rates, higher gate fidelity, better state detection, better reliability, and easier to network for creating modular systems. However, the source for the Barium material may not be available off-the-shelf, particularly if there are requirements for very high purity or a specific Barium isotope. To ensure a reliable source, IonQ has partnered with Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to ensure a sustainable domestic supply of the material. In addition, the team has been able to reduce the size of the Barium source material to microscopic scale which will be a benefit in IonQ's efforts to miniaturize its systems. In related developments, IonQ has joined the Northwest Quantum Nexus (NQN), along with Microsoft, the University of Washington (UW) and PNNL and also announced that it plans to soon create a product engineering facility in the Seattle area. You can view IonQ's announcement of its partnership with PNNL in a news release located here.

February 18, 2022