Isaac Chuang

About

Isaac Chuang is the Julius A. Stratton Professor in Electrical Engineering and Physics at MIT. He is a pioneer in the field of quantum information science, with significant contributions including the experimental realization of two, three, five, and seven quantum bit quantum computers using nuclear spins in molecules. His work provided the first laboratory demonstrations of many important quantum algorithms, such as Shor's quantum factoring algorithm. Prof. Chuang's development of error correction, algorithmic cooling, and entanglement manipulation techniques has advanced the ability to control light and matter at the quantum level, laying a foundation for large-scale quantum information processing systems. Prof. Chuang joined MIT in 2000 from IBM, where he was a research staff member. He earned his doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, where he was a Hertz Foundation Fellow. He also holds two bachelor's and one master's degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from MIT, and completed post-doctoral fellowships at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley. He is co-author of the textbook 'Quantum Computation and Quantum Information' with Michael Nielsen. His research interests include how physical systems can represent and process information, understanding nature through information and computation, and developing architectures for quantum information systems.

Research topics

• Computer science
• Physics
• Quantum mechanics
• Materials science
• Algorithm

Selected publications

• Long-lived metastable-qubit memory

  Physical review. A/Physical review, A · 2025-02-18 · 9 citations

  article

  The authors demonstrate an experimental realization of a long-lived quantum memory using the optical-frequency--metastable-state--ground-state architecture in a trapped ion, where the qubit is stored in the metastable states while an ancillary ion is used for sympathetic cooling. A dynamical decoupling sequence and leakage detection are employed to extend the coherence time to approximately four times the natural lifetime of the metastable state.

  PublisherDOI

• Toward Mixed Analog-Digital Quantum Signal Processing: Quantum AD/DA Conversion and the Fourier Transform

  IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing · 2025-01-01 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Signal processing stands as a pillar of classical computation and modern information technology, applicable to both analog and digital signals. Recently, advancements in quantum information science have suggested that quantum signal processing (QSP) can enable more powerful signal processing capabilities. However, the developments in QSP have primarily leveraged <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">digital</i> quantum resources, such a…

  PublisherDOI

• Fault-tolerant neural networks from biological error correction codes

  Physical review. E · 2024-11-05 · 5 citations

  articleSenior author

  It has been an open question in deep learning if fault-tolerant computation is possible: can arbitrarily reliable computation be achieved using only unreliable neurons? In the grid cells of the mammalian cortex, analog error correction codes have been observed to protect states against neural spiking noise, but their role in information processing is unclear. Here, we use these biological error correction codes to develop a universal fault-tolerant neural network that achieves reliable computati…

  PublisherDOI

• Modular quantum signal processing in many variables

  Quantum · 2025-06-18 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Despite significant advances in quantum algorithms, quantum programs in practice are often expressed at the circuit level, forgoing helpful structural abstractions common to their classical counterparts. Consequently, as many quantum algorithms have been unified with the advent of quantum signal processing (QSP) and quantum singular value transformation (QSVT), an opportunity has appeared to cast these algorithms as modules that can be combined to constitute complex programs. Complicating this,…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Integrated-photonics-based systems for polarization-gradient cooling of trapped ions

  Light Science & Applications · 2026-01-15 · 2 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Trapped ions are a promising modality for quantum systems, with demonstrated utility as the basis for quantum processors and optical clocks. However, traditional trapped-ion systems are implemented using complex free-space optical configurations, whose large size and susceptibility to vibrations and drift inhibit scaling to large numbers of qubits. In recent years, integrated-photonics-based systems have been demonstrated as an avenue to address the challenge of scaling trapped-ion systems while…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• AF: Large: Collaborative Research: Reliable Quantum Communication and Computation in the Presence of Noise

  NSF · $714k · 2011–2017

• Collaborative Research: EMT: Novel Operations, Circuit Optimization, and Technology Evaluation for Large-Scale, Fault-Tolerant Quantum Computing

  NSF · $125k · 2007–2010

• MRI-R2: Laser Acquisition and Modernization Program (LAMP) for Quantum Science and Engineering

  NSF · $2.3M · 2010–2013

Frequent coauthors

• Andrew Ho

  60 shared

• Justin Reich

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  57 shared

• Jaroslaw Labaziewicz

  57 shared

• Guang Hao Low

  54 shared

• Jim Waldo

  50 shared

• Peter F. Herskind

  Novo Nordisk (Denmark)

  47 shared

• Yufei Ge

  National University of Defense Technology

  46 shared

• John Chiaverini

  Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  42 shared

Awards & honors

• 2010 // American Physical Society Fellow

Similar researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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• Hong Liuh-160
• William Detmoldh-68