Research
Experimental physicist Rainer Blatt has carried out trail-blazing experiments in the fields of precision spectroscopy, quantum metrology and quantum information processing. He works with atoms caught in ion traps which he manipulates using laser beams. This work is based on suggestions made in the mid-1990s by theorists Ignacio Cirac and Peter Zoller. In 2004, using their suggested set-up, Blatt’s working group, at the same time as a team at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colorado, USA, succeeded for the first time in transferring the quantum information of one atom in a totally controlled manner onto another atom (teleportation). The science journal Nature reported these independently conducted experiments back-to-back and gave them pride of place on the cover. In that experiment three particles had been positioned in an ion trap. Two years later, Rainer Blatt’s working group already managed to entangle up to eight atoms in a controlled manner. Creating such a first “quantum byte” (qubyte) is a further step on the way towards a quantum computer. Blatt is also known for his support of young scientists. Six of his former assistants (Christoph Becher, Jürgen Eschner, Hartmut Häffner, Dietrich Leibfried, Piet O. Schmidt, Ferdinand Schmidt-Kaler) have since been appointed to chairs at universities abroad.
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