Quantum computation of silicon electronic band structure

Understand

Development of quantum architectures during the last decade has inspired hybrid classical-quantum algorithms in physics and quantum chemistry that promise simulations of fermionic systems beyond the capability of modern classical computers, even before the era of quantum computing fully arrives.

• Strong research efforts have been recently made to obtain minimal depth quantum circuits which could accurately represent chemical systems.
• Here, we show that unprecedented methods used in quantum chemistry, designed to simulate molecules on quantum processors, can be extended to calculate properties of periodic solids.
• In particular, we present minimal depth circuits implementing the variational quantum eigensolver algorithm and successfully use it to compute the band structure of silicon on a quantum machine for the first time.