It is harder than it sounds, however. Finding atoms that you can control and measure, and that also aren't too sensitive to magnetic or electric field fluctuations that cause errors, or decoherence, is challenging.

"Solid-state emitters that interact well with light often fall victim to decoherence; that is, they stop storing information in a way that's useful from the prospective of quantum engineering," says Jon Kindem (MS '17, PhD '19), lead author of the Nature paper. Meanwhile, atoms of rare-earth elements -- which have properties that make the elements useful as qubits -- tend to interact poorly with light.

To overcome this challenge, researchers led by Caltech's Andrei Faraon (BS '04), professor of applied physics and electrical engineering, constructed a nanophotonic cavity, a beam that is about 10 microns in length with periodic nano-patterning, sculpted from a piece of crystal. They then identified a rare-earth ytterbium ion in the center of the beam. The optical cavity allows them to bounce light back and forth down the beam multiple times until it is finally absorbed by the ion.

In the Nature paper, the team showed that the cavity modifies the environment of the ion such that whenever it emits a photon, more than 99 percent of the time that photon remains in the cavity, where scientists can then efficiently collect and detect that photon to measure the state of the ion. This results in an increase in the rate at which the ion can emit photons, improving the overall effectiveness of the system.