About
Ben Lanyon is an experimental physicist who seeks to develop new levels of control over quantum entanglement in the laboratory: exotic correlations that can exist between particles such as atoms.
Specifically, he works on developing and demonstrating ways to make, manipulate, and characterize quantum entanglement and to use it for new science and technology. His group investigates entanglement between ions a few microns apart in strings, between ions and travelling photons, and between ions hundreds of meters and more apart.
One of his projects aims to access large-scale entanglement in the laboratory. The approach here is to realize an engineered system of 50 or more trapped ions. Recently, Lanyon has achieved entanglement in a fully-controlled system of 20 ions.
A second project aims to develop quantum networks: remote matter-based quantum systems that are linked together with light. A focus in this project is on developing methods to distribute entanglement over large distances. Recently, Lanyon’s team has achieved entanglement between a trapped ion and a photon over 50 km.
Awards
- Austrian Science Board (FWF) START prize, 2015
- European Union Marie-Curie Fellowship, 2011
- University of Queensland ‘ResTeach’ grant, 2010
- University of Queensland Dean’s award for ‘Outstanding Research Higher Degree Thesis’
- Australian Government European Endeavour Award, 2007
Relevant Publications
Krutyanskiy, V., Meraner, M., Schupp, J.,…Lanyon, B. P. (2019). Light-matter entanglement over 50 km of optical fibre. NPJ Quantum Information, 5(72). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41534-019-0186-3
Friis, O., Marty, C., Maier, C.,… Lanyon. B.P. (2018). Observation of entangled states of a fully-controlled 20 qubit system. Phys Rev X, 8, 021012. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.8.021012
Lanyon, B. P.C., Maier, M., Holzäpfel, T., Baumgratz, C., et al. (2017). Efficient tomography of a quantum many-body system. Natural Physics, 13, 1158-62.
Jurcevic, P., Lanyon, B. P., Hauke, P., Hempel, C., et al. (2014). Quasiparticle engineering and entanglement propagation in a quantum many-body system. Nature International Journal of Science, 511, 202–205.
Lanyon, B. P., Hempel, C., Nigg, M., & Müller, R. (2011). Universal digital quantum simulation with trapped ions. Science, 334(6052), 57-61.