A landmark collaboration between two U.S. Department of Energy National Quantum Information Science Research Centers has produced a critical breakthrough in the path toward scalable quantum computers. Researchers from Fermilab and MIT Lincoln Laboratory, working through the Quantum Science Center and the Quantum Systems Accelerator, have successfully demonstrated that cryoelectronics can reliably control ion traps at the extreme cold temperatures required for quantum computing.
Why Ion Traps?
Ion-trap quantum computers use charged atoms confined by electric or magnetic fields as qubits. Such systems are prized for their long coherence times and high-fidelity operations — two properties essential for reliable quantum computation. However, scaling them to the millions of qubits needed for advanced applications has remained a formidable challenge.
Today's systems rely on lasers and extensive wiring between room-temperature electronics and cryogenic ion traps — a setup that becomes increasingly impractical as the number of ions grows. The Fermilab–MIT Lincoln Laboratory team addressed this directly by placing ultra-low-power cryoelectronics near the ion traps themselves.
The Breakthrough
Their redesigned system replaced some of the room-temperature controls with a chip mounted inside the cryogenic environment. The researchers successfully demonstrated that this hybrid approach could move and control individual ions, hold them at set positions, and measure the effects of electronic noise — all key functions for a functioning quantum computer.
"By showing that low-power cryoelectronics can work inside ion-trap systems, we may be able to accelerate the timeline for scaling quantum computers, bringing closer into reach what seemed decades away. This approach could ultimately support systems with tens of thousands of electrodes or more." — Farah Fahim, Head of Fermilab's Microelectronics Division
Path Forward
Future work will directly connect the cryoelectronics with the ion-trap chips, further increasing efficiency and performance and enabling scaling of ion-trap arrays for larger systems. The proof-of-principle experiment marks an important advancement toward building large-scale ion-trap quantum computing systems that could one day underpin fault-tolerant quantum computers.