Lecturer: Prof. Rainer Blatt, Institute for Experimental Physics,  
University of Innsbruck, Austria
Abstract:
Since the mid-nineties of the 20 th century, it became apparent that one of the centuries’ most  
important technological inventions, that is computers in general, and many of their applications
can be further enhanced by using operations based on quantum physics. This is timely since the
classical roadmap for the development of computational devices, commonly known as Moore’s
law, will cease to be applicable within the next decade. This is due to the ever-smaller sizes of
electronic components that soon will enter the quantum physics realm. Computations, whether
they happen in our heads or with any computational device, always rely on real physical
processes, which are data input, data representation in a memory, data manipulation using
algorithms and finally, the data output. Building a quantum computer then requires the
implementation of quantum bits (qubits) as storage sites for quantum information, quantum
registers and quantum gates for data handling and processing and the development of quantum
algorithms. In this talk, the basic functional principle of a quantum computer will be reviewed. It
will be shown how strings of trapped ions can be used to build a quantum information processor
and how basic computations can be performed using quantum techniques. Routes towards a
scalable quantum computer will be discussed.