Google Quantum AI said it has demonstrated quantum error correction on a hexagonal lattice using its Willow processor, testing a design that uses three couplers per qubit instead of four. The company said the approach could simplify chip design and fabrication while supporting error correction on large quantum chips.
In the Willow architecture, each physical qubit is connected to its four nearest neighbors in a square lattice. The new approach uses dynamic circuits with two distinct types of error correction cycles, both of which use three couplers per qubit, with one coupler used twice within the cycle.
Google Quantum AI said the result is a quantum error correction circuit with dynamic, overlapping detecting regions that can still be used to triangulate errors while requiring only three couplers per qubit.
The company evaluated the circuit on Willow, which has square connectivity, by turning off unused couplers to simulate hexagonal connectivity. It said that as the code’s distance scales from 3 to 5, the logical error rate improves by a factor of 2.15, matching the performance of a traditional static circuit operating on the same hardware in its milestone experiment last year.
Google Quantum AI said the findings demonstrate the feasibility of constructing a hexagonal qubit lattice for quantum error correction. It also said the design could reduce the complexity of optimization algorithms for selecting qubit and gate frequencies.
The company said this simplification leads to a 15% improvement in the simulated error suppression factor, and that the processor design uses three couplers per qubit rather than four.
Source: research.google.
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