Hello, and welcome to the Physics World weekly
podcast. I'm Hamish Johnston.
In this episode, I'm in conversation with Travis
Humble, who is director of the Quantum Science
Center
at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
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Located in The US state of Tennessee,
Oak Ridge National Lab is run by the
US Department of Energy,
the DOE.
The Quantum Science Center links Oak Ridge with
other US National Labs,
universities,
and companies.
In this podcast,
Travis Humble explains how these collaborations
ensure that Oak Ridge's powerful facilities
and instruments
are used to create new quantum technologies.
He also explains how the lab's expertise
in quantum
and conventional computing
is benefiting
the academic
and industrial
communities.
Hi, Travis. Welcome to the podcast.
Hi, Hamish. Thanks for having me.
So, Travis,
Oak Ridge is home to several facilities for
material
characterization,
including the spallation neutron source.
How is, Oak Ridge National Lab using these
facilities
to develop new materials
for quantum technologies?
Oak Ridge National Laboratory has many unique facilities,
including the spallation neutron source, which is actually
one of the Department of Energy's user facilities.
This is one of the brightest sources of
neutrons in the world and, of course, an
incredibly powerful capability for characterizing
novel materials.
Within
Oak Ridge and part of our quantum,
science and technology efforts, we're actually looking at
some remarkable examples of materials
that can have what we call topological
order or entanglement in them.
These materials are electronic or magnetic.
And what makes them so interesting is that
under the right conditions,
they can actually have these unique phases
where the electrons or the spins that are
involved
can actually be entangled in a quantum mechanical
way.
And by using the spallation neutron source and
some of the neutron beams that we have
there, we can actually probe these materials,
recover the neutrons that scatter off of them,
and from those signals,
infer whether or not the materials
are entangled.
So this is a remarkable capability. It is
something unique about Oak Ridge and
Department of Energy's user facilities that allow us
to explore an entirely new regime of of
of materials, these types of, strongly correlated quantum
materials that we think to be very useful
for developing new quantum technologies.
I see. And I suppose the spallation neutron
sort that source, that's your,
as well I suppose big ticket
facility or one of the sort of big
ticket facilities
that you have at Oak Ridge. But you
you must have other
materials,
characterization
capabilities that you use along with the, with
the neutron source. Can you can you talk
a bit about those and how they might
be used
in,
materials characterization
for quantum technologies?
The SNS or Spallies Neutron Source is certainly
one of our biggest and boldest,
instruments that we have for characterizing these these
types of systems,
but in no way is it the only
one.
We are also home to the Center for
Nanophase Material Science. This is one of the
Department of Energy's
Nanoscience Research Centers.
It is a remarkable facility
co located,
with the spallation neutron source
to enable us to characterize new materials. In
fact, it actually enables the synthesis,
the creation of these materials,
the characterization,
and then ultimately
demonstrating control over them. So I'll give you
one particular example.
We are very interested in a type of
material that is known as a spin liquid.
It's a spin system, magnetic system,
where the spins within the material can actually
become entangled with each other,
demonstrate correlations over very large distances. And this
is large relative to individual atoms, mind you.
And using the neutron source, we've actually been
able to detect
a signature
that there is, in fact, entanglement present in
these materials. This is ruthenium trichloride is one
particular example of this type of quantum magnet,
but there are several others.
And because we have the capabilities
of the the CNMS, the Center for Nanophase
Material Science,
we're now taking those materials that have been
certified as quantum or entangled
and translating them into a process where we
start to design new types of devices.
This gets into the fabrication of the material
into unique geometries,
the connection to electrodes and other types of
control systems
that then provide a path
to demonstrating novel physics and other types of
unique behaviors.
Hamish, just to kind of, get to the
punch line on this, what we really think
is possible is that these types of quantum
spin liquids
can be translated into a new qubit technology
that can store and process quantum information.
We haven't demonstrated that yet, but the tools
and capabilities that we have here at Oak
Ridge are incredibly empowering,
for that type of technology development.
I see. And I'm guessing that it's very
important to have all of these things together
in one place
and have some very skilled people
who,
know how to make the,
devices that you're testing and also know how
to use the sort of plethora of of
analysis equipment
that you have. Can can can you talk
a bit about,
about the people,
at Oak Ridge who are involved in this?
I'm guessing you've got physicists, chemists, material scientists,
engineers all working together?
It is absolutely a multidisciplinary
environment. And
I would say that
the facilities,
the the ecosystem that we've created within the
laboratory
actually
supports this type of interchange and collaboration across
disciplines.
Just like you suggested, the
the instruments that we have enable these new
types of discoveries, these development of scientific ideas,
the translation into technologies.
But that's a multistep process. And you can
only succeed when you have a team of
people working together on these kind of large
scale problems.
And that team is always multidisciplinary.
I will say that in my experience,
the ability for the team to communicate efficiently,
to understand each other's
concepts and reasoning, and to translate back and
forth across these disciplinary boundaries
is probably one of the central and most
important parts of, this type of scientific development.
Certainly, when you have a common facility, a
common infrastructure
that can be facilitated
by these types of, coordination,
then you can get much more powerful science
that comes out of it.
Just to give you an example of what
I'm what I'm thinking about here,
when we talk about qubits
in, quantum science and technology space,
the truth is everybody has a slightly different
definition of that word. For my computer scientist
friends, this is sort of a logical representation
of information that we manipulate through algorithms and
programs and other types of, methods.
While for my material
scientist friends, this is almost always a two
level system embedded in some electronic or magnetic
degree of freedom and often independent of the
logical,
and and computational connections that are gonna be
necessary there.
So bridging that, is definitely a multidisciplinary,
activity.
And these types of facilities
bring all those people together and really amplify
the types of science and and development that
can occur.
I see. And and can you talk a
bit about, who you collaborate with outside
of, Oak Ridge? I'm I'm guessing that you
you you you you're involved in lots of
projects with, with scientists from universities around The
US, probably
around the world,
I would imagine.
Is that a I'm guessing that's a big
part of what you do, collaboration,
enabling
university scientists, for example, to,
to do experiments.
The national laboratories
play an important role, I think, in the
ecosystem for research and development within The United
States.
And partnerships
are a critical piece of that activity.
Some of these are partnerships with universities,
especially,
individual
investigators who are looking to get access to
these, types of instruments that we're talking about.
Of course, as user facilities for the Department
of Energy, there are actually programs in place
to go and apply to, use an instrument
or spend time with scientists who are working
there to develop an idea and ultimately
publish on the results from it. But in
addition, a lot of the work that we
do within these facilities and within the national
laboratories
requires that partnership.
Easily, the the the most obvious one is
workforce
And the ability to train the next generation
of scientists and engineers who are gonna work
on these topics
oftentimes requires
early exposure and understanding of what the national
labs do, the mission,
but also the types of equipment and and
methods that we're using here.
So in addition to kind of pursuing research
goals and developing science and breakthroughs in these
areas,
that partnership also builds up this infrastructure, these
personnel that we're talking about that can support
the operation of the center, the operation of
the laboratories,
and put all of that forward.
Here at Oak Ridge, we actually have a
highly ambitious
and,
I would say, impactful effort
through our Quantum Science Center. And the Quantum
Science Center is one of the Department of
Energy's National Quantum Information Science Research Centers.
It is a,
partnership.
The QSC is a partnership
led by Oak Ridge, but all but including
over 20 other institutions,
involved in that partnership, and many of those
coming from universities
as well as industry.
So this type of coordination of effort
and the collaboration
of multidisciplinary
and even kind of,
perspectives from industry, academia, and government
is
is in,
very good hands,
within the laboratory
because it requires us to have that type
of partnership and focused effort in order to
make these advances.
And I would imagine with quantum I mean,
quantum is is is real
business now, isn't it? It's not just ideas
about about how you could start a company
based on quantum technologies.
Your collaboration with industry must be growing,
on leaps and bounds,
over the years.
You're exactly right. What I would say is
most interesting,
from my perspective at the moment is that
quantum has emerged over the last decade in
particular
as a national
scientific priority.
And this is cut across multiple
federal government administrations.
It's continuing today. And what we are finding
is that that priority is driven by
the concerns for national security. It's a critical
technology.
We're effectively changing out the the technology
basis of a entire planet, and, that has
huge implications in many different areas.
It provides economic advantage,
including the development of new products and services.
And this, of course,
is one of the reasons industry is so
interested in this type of technology is that
it opens up opportunities
that frankly you can't get to in any
other way.
And then I think from my own perspective,
quantum is an enabling
ability
for new scientific discoveries. And that, of course,
has huge implications for things in energy innovation
and
and other topics.
So
because of this kind of setting, the context
right now in the in The United States,
the drive for industry to develop these new
products and services, the focus on the government
and other parts of the the ecosystem
to build out these capabilities
has not only increased
the the stake
in,
what we're all pursuing,
but also driven home the emphasis that we
need to all do this together.
So, So certainly, the national laboratories and industry
are partnering very closely,
including the ability to access the types of
instruments that we have here through SNS and
the CNMS, as well as, other facilities.
But at the same time, we're getting access
to the types of technologies that industry is
developing,
especially in their quantum computing platforms.
So this is one of the most exciting
partnerships I think that we have at the
moment is how can we, as a laboratory,
understand these new products and services that industry
is creating in the quantum space and start
to integrate them, adapt them into our own
scientific discovery workflows.
And, of course, this is,
one of the hottest areas right now. How
do you use a quantum computer
to solve these types of material science problems
that we were just talking about, with the
sphalation neutron source?
And I I wanna talk to you may
maybe
in a while about, about using quantum computing
computers, which I think is that's something that
Oak Ridge is, is involved in. But first,
I want to ask you about,
sort of classical computing because, of course, the
lab is also famous
for its, high performance
computing.
And, it's home to Frontier, which is one
of the world's most powerful supercomputers.
Can you talk a bit about how the
lab is using its expertise in classical computation
to develop new paradigms for quantum computing?
High performance computing,
has been
a remarkable and disruptive ability for
not just exploring
complex systems,
but also understanding
their behaviors and
how those behaviors can be controlled and ultimately
applied to to new ideas.
One particular example is in the area of
material science,
chemistry, biology, other complex physical systems,
where modeling and simulation
play a huge role in our scientific discovery
process. In fact, many people would say that
next to theory and experiment,
computation is a sort of a third pillar
of the the r and d ecosystem.
And here, high performance computers are the high
bar on capability when it comes to modeling
and simulation,
even optimization and design. A lot of times,
we're using these classical computing capabilities
to reason about systems,
come up with the best alternatives, or or
optimize their behaviors.
And then
one of the most remarkable,
examples in the the last several years has
been the application
of HPC
to machine learning and artificial intelligence.
So cutting across kind of those three big,
application
areas,
you can start to understand that high performance
computing is just as powerful of a tool
as the spallation neutron source or the CNMS
when it comes to
understanding and exploring these complex physical systems.
What is,
been very important
about having all of these facilities colocated at
Oak Ridge
is that you can create that ecosystem
where
the simulation that we've run on the high
performance computer provides datasets
that can be compared directly with the types
of data that's coming out of the neutron
scattering experiments.
And that provides a very tight and, coordinated
cycle of development
that ensures that we get to the the
best results the fastest way possible.
Of course, this again introduces the the questions
that we were talking about earlier
when it comes to multidisciplinary
efforts and, team science as we call it.
You have to have good coordination. You have
to have clarity and communication.
And then, of course, you have to have
a very clear vision about the goals that
you're trying to accomplish.
That's what keeps this all on the rails,
making sure that all of these efforts have
a common understanding of the mission of the
the laboratory as well as the, the Department
of Energy.
High performance computing is, certainly one of the
the biggest and, I would say, most significant
capabilities that we have right now for pushing
that frontier forward.
I see. And and Travis, you're also director
of Oak Ridge's quantum computing user program, and
that provides access to commercial quantum computers.
Who who are your users? Are they
industry
or a bit of both?
And what resources do do you provide them
with?
The quantum computing user program was started back
in 02/2017.
At that time,
quantum computers were just begun just beginning to
come online.
So,
a few of the vendors like IBM and
D Wave and maybe one or two others
were starting to see value
in having
their systems available publicly,
through different mechanisms
so that they could generate feedback
on the development and the design, the operation
of those systems.
Well, of course, one of the main motivations
behind developing quantum computing
has been the creation of a platform that
could be used to model and simulate complex
systems.
And that immediately aligns with the types of
goals that we have at Oak Ridge and,
within many of the national laboratories.
So we saw an opportunity
to partner with industry
on gaining access to their quantum computing systems.
In our case, though, we didn't wanna just
keep it internal within the laboratory.
We wanted to expand that user base to
bring in people the same way we do
with our other facilities
so that they can also contribute and provide
insights into
what makes a good quantum computer, and when
are the quantum computers good enough that they're
changing the face of what we're already doing
within scientific discovery.
So the Quantum Computing User Program, or Q
Cup, as we call it for short,
is now part of our leadership computing facility,
the same facility that houses the Frontier,
computing system.
And through that program,
we recruit
users from all over the country,
a few outside of The US as well,
to submit proposals that can then be reviewed
internally,
competitively awarded based on their merit and feasibility.
And then they basically get time to,
the quantum computing vendors that we've contracted with
through the Q Cup program
to test and evaluate their programs.
Now currently, we have four vendors,
IBM,
Quantinuum,
IQM,
and IonQ.
And through those vendors, we actually have
gained allocation to run on their systems.
We manage the resources
with the user base that we have through
the Q Cup program.
That's, I think, historically
close to around 400 users from, again, over
many different areas.
And we manage the portfolio of projects that
they are actually exploring.
So just like we were talking about earlier,
materials, chemistry, biology, machine learning,
computer science,
there's close to 20 or 30 different topics
that we keep track of,
and we have a portfolio of these users
who are all investigating those those different areas.
It's a remarkable program, and I should say
it is very,
well received by the community.
That's not to say that
the
that it's not a dynamic,
aspect. And what I mean by that is
every year, we have something we call the
quantum computing user forum. It'll be coming up
at the July this year. We get the
users and the vendors together, and we all
sit down, and we talk about what have
been the latest results in our use of
the systems.
And many times, what we will find is
that the users have identified a bottleneck or
a pitfall
that's limiting the availability
of their calculations.
Maybe it's the noise or the error in
the systems. Maybe it's the programming interface.
And this is an opportunity for the vendors
to accept that feedback, to make modifications,
changes in their own roadmaps and interfaces and
designs
that can be responsive to that community.
I think that's actually one of the the
most amazing parts of this particular program is
the dynamic aspect with which the users and
the vendors can engage through each with each
other. And then, of course, from our perspective
at the at the national laboratory,
how do we get ready for integrating that
technology
into a future high performance computing system that
can offer this type of service at a
at a much larger one.
Right.
I see. And and, there, are you talking
about sort of a hybrid system that takes
advantage of both
a quantum computer and, say,
a supercomputer
and, you know, sort of runs the appropriate
parts of the problem
on each,
type of hardware to, sort of maximize the
efficiency
of the calculation?
I think hybrid systems are the future.
Both in the the context of
we want to integrate quantum computing, the devices,
the methods, the technology
into our
current scientific infrastructure. And of course, that means
high performance computing systems. They're so important to
what we do here.
I envision that
we will have some way of taking the
quantum computers,
connecting them both physically and logically
to the HPC systems So we can do
exactly as you were describing that
the users, the scientific,
computing users will develop a program. Let's say
it's simulation of a quantum material.
That program does not have to be entirely
run on the quantum computer. There can be
parts of it that are preprocessing or pro
pro post processing on the, HPC system
or even some sort of hybrid method where
we're sampling the quantum computer
to inform calculations that are performed on HPC.
There there's lots of options here.
But that's not the only way in which
this type of technology can be integrated.
We can also imagine integrating the quantum computer
directly into
the characterization
and the sensing of these types of materials
so that that calculation
is actually informed
directly by experimental data.
So this type of interconnected,
devices that include computers and sensors and other
types of, quantum technologies,
I think that's a much bigger version of
this hybrid,
paradigm
and certainly something that we can,
evaluate more.
But the idea of connecting quantum technology to
the current scientific infrastructure,
I think this is an absolute necessity for
the survival of the technology
to be, both useful and impactful on the
scientific community.
I see. And you and you brought me
nicely to my next question, which is about
quantum sensors.
I'm guessing that,
that Oak Ridge is in is, involved in
developing materials,
for quantum sensors as well as quantum competing
devices.
You're exactly right. The
ability to
characterize,
to sense, to detect unique quantum signals
is actually requiring
advances
in those same types of technologies. And and
what I mean by this is that many
times,
the features of a of a signal,
let's say it's a spectrum
or some sort of response function, whatever it
might be,
many times
the the
type of feature that we're looking for is
uniquely quantum mechanical,
and that requires an increase in sensitivity
and precision,
in the measurement capability to surpass
what would be conventional
limitations
on the noise and the error in those
types of measurements.
And probably one of the places that Oak
Ridge has, the most expertise
is in surpassing what we call the shot
noise limit.
And this is a typical type of statistical
error that occurs as you make many types
of measurements.
It turns out that the,
that particular type of error should scale as
one over,
the square root of n, where n is
the number of samples that you're collecting. This
is very, well known, statistical,
consequence of classical information theory.
But quantum,
information theory actually provides us a pathway
to
reduce that sensitivity
to the the,
measurements. In fact, what I mean to say
here is that it changes it from one
over square root of n to one over
n so that you have a much better
resolution in the measurements using the same number
of of collections.
And that type of
development
of sensors that surpass the shot noise limit
gives us a way of
removing the veil
of classical theory that currently covers the quantum
world.
And that exposes
all of these quantum signatures that we're looking
for. Of course, it's a very demanding and
highly sensitive experiment, but those are the ways
that we're trying to create quantum sensors that
can characterize materials, look for topological order and
entanglement in exciting new ways.
But then, of course, as we were saying
earlier,
those capabilities
can now be fed directly into
these types of quantum computing systems
where they're naturally using that quantum
representation of the data. It's a much better,
more accurate, more precise representation of the data,
which can only serve to amplify our ability
to perform calculations.
I see. And I I wanted to also
ask you about,
Oak Ridge's work in coming up with ways
to use existing
fiber optic infrastructure
to create a quantum Internet that,
I suppose would allow quantum computers to be
connected to each other and quantum information to
be sent over long distances. Can you can
you talk a bit about that research? What
what what are the challenges of using
existing infrastructure?
And, what what what are people at Oak
Ridge doing to overcome those challenges?
Integrating quantum technologies into our existing infrastructure
is anything but straightforward.
We, of course, have to deal with the
fact that the interface to the the worlds
of quantum and classical mechanics are,
very different from each other.
The quantum state is kind of the
most important object to be maintained and preserved
through all of this sensing and computing and
transmission,
processes.
And that interface now with our hybrid infrastructure
means that we've developed ways to not only
move the information around, but to also transduce
it from one medium to the other.
And here you can think about the idea
that if I've stored some information in the
electronic spin of a material,
but I wanna somehow move that information
over to the
electronic spin of an ion that's been trapped
in a quantum computer somewhere,
I have to have some way of transducing
the information into, let's say, an optical carrier,
that can move the information from one location
to the other.
That's all very technical sounding, but what I'm
trying to say is that
the ability
to move quantum information from one location to
another
has very many,
technology demands on it
in addition to the fact
that we already have a very well developed
and well supported infrastructure
that needs to accommodate
those types of new technologies.
Here at Oak Ridge, we have a specific
interest in how can we use our existing
infrastructure
and build upon that to create this hybrid
quantum ecosystem.
We currently have the Department of Energy's
largest fiber based network,
over 300 kilometers of fiber that can be
used
for testing and evaluating transmission protocols.
These are using some of the same,
sources and transmitters that we would use for,
say, sensor development.
But now we can channel them into the
transmission across long distances.
That allows us to create a distributed network
where sensors are in one location, computers are
in another, perhaps the end user is in
a third, And that type of hybrid environment,
that hybrid infrastructure becomes very important
to thinking about
what does a future laboratory look like
that is fully integrated with quantum technology.
What are all of the pieces that have
to come together, they have to converge
in order to support that type of infrastructure?
So our our work developing,
fiber based,
communication systems, this type of quantum Internet is
an important part of, that development.
I see. And and finally, Travis, I'd like
you to, to get out your quantum crystal
ball
and maybe have a look in the future
at quantum science and technology
at Oak Ridge. What, what what do you
see coming up in
the near future and I suppose further ahead?
Are there any
exciting projects that are being planned at the
moment?
Is ground being broken on any new facilities?
What can we look forward to from Oak
Ridge and in the quantum world?
You know, the past five years have been
a series of remarkable advances in quantum science
and technology,
both at Oak Ridge and, I would say,
more broadly around the planet.
What is
very exciting, though, is that we have only
seen the pace of innovation and development increase
over these five years. So I anticipate that
the next five years is going to see
that increase even further.
We will see technology scale up. We will
see the number of qubits that are being
developed become,
larger,
higher fidelity,
better,
integrated, more sophisticated
operations.
That
course opens us up to a whole new
set of products and services, including quantum computers
that can start to routinely reach
what we would call quantum advantage, you know,
surpassing
the best calculations that we think we can
do today with high performance computing systems.
In addition,
as we start to integrate these types of
capabilities
into our infrastructure,
we'll see that convergence
of the quantum and classical ideas occur
so that we can think about quantum high
performance computers or quantum sensors connecting into these
quantum computers
and, of course, the security overall of that,
network by using these quantum transmission protocols.
Here at Oak Ridge, we've got the Quantum
Science Center, which is going up for another
five years of activity.
We've got the Q Cup program that only
continues to grow its,
its user base.
All of that is being supported by a
recently opened building,
called the Translational Research Capability Building or TRC.
That building has actually been developed over the
the last several years
to specifically house,
the very sensitive instruments and experiments that we
wanna do in quantum
materials, quantum optics, quantum computing, all of these
different areas.
So we're already seeing the Department of Energy
and Oak Ridge National Laboratory
make plans for this future convergence of quantum
and and and conventional methods.
But what I think is probably more important
to all of that
mirrors the conversation we had at the beginning
about unique capabilities
and the role that personnel play.
Because the other thing that is most important
in the next five years
is building out partnerships
between industry and academia and the other national
labs
to support
what these types of capabilities
can lead to.
Oak Ridge is especially interested in developing that
type of partnership, that type of network
so that we can amplify the impact that
we have,
both in terms
of how do we create the technology, how
do we overcome these scientific challenges,
but also in terms of the adoption of
that technology and its application to what I
would consider real world
use cases,
scientific discovery, economic advantage, and national security.
All of these will continue to be a
priority over the the next five years, the
next decade,
And it will be a very exciting experience
to watch the transformations
that are happening,
not just here at Oak Ridge, but around
the world
in the development, the maturity, and the breakthroughs,
in this this particular field.
Well, that's great. That sounds very exciting and
lots of work to be done by you
and your colleagues, which is which is good
news.
So thanks, Travis. Thanks so much for coming
on the podcast and talking to us about
all things quantum at the Oak Ridge National
Lab. Thank you, Hamish. It's been a pleasure.
I'm afraid that's all the time we have
for this week's podcast, which is supported by
American Elements.
Thanks to Travis Humble for his insights into
quantum research and development
at Oak Ridge National Lab, and a special
thanks to our producer,
Fred Isles.
This podcast is brought to you by American
Elements,
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manufacturer of engineered
and advanced materials.
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quantities,
American Elements is the largest supplier of its
kind.
For more than twenty five years, its research
and development programs
have been a vital resource
for innovation
across corporate,
government, and academic sectors.
The company's ability to scale
laboratory
breakthroughs
to industrial production
has contributed to many of the most significant
technological
advancements
since 1990,
including
LED lighting,
smartphones,
and electric vehicles.
To learn more, visit
www.americanelements.com.
American Elements.
Now invent.