Kenneth R Brown | Scholars@Duke

Kenneth R Brown
Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Prof. Brown's research interest is the control of quantum systems for both understanding the natural world and developing new technologies. His current research areas are the development of robust quantum computers and the study of molecular properties at cold and ultracold temperatures.

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering 2018
Associate Professor of Chemistry, Chemistry, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2018
Associate Professor of Physics, Physics, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2018

Contact Information

701 W Main St, Suite 400, Durham, NC 27701
kenneth.r.brown@duke.edu (919) 660-1376
Brown Lab

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., University of California at Berkeley 2003
- B.S., University Puget Sound 1998
Duke Appointment History
- Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Pratt School of Engineering 2017 - 2018
Academic Positions Outside Duke
- Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Computational Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. 2013 - 2017
- Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry and Computational Science and Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. 2007 - 2013
Recognition
In the News
- AUG 7, 2018 Pratt School of Engineering
  
  Duke to Lead $15 Million Program to Create First Practical Quantum Computer
- APR 16, 2018 Pratt School of Engineering
  
  Spectator Qubits Seek to Improve Control of Four Quantum Computing Systems
Awards & Honors
- Humboldt Research Fellow. Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. 2015
Research
Selected Grants
- PFCQC: STAQ: Software-Tailored Architecture for Quantum co-design awarded by National Science Foundation 2018 - 2023
- Collaborative Research: EPiQC:Enabling Practical-Scale Quantum Computation awarded by National Science Foundation 2018 - 2023
- Quantum-hardware focused application performance benchmarks awarded by Department of Energy 2018 - 2022
- Quantum control based on real-time environment analysis by spectator qubits awarded by Army Research Office 2018 - 2021
- MRI: Development of a Programmable Ion-Trap Quantum Computer awarded by National Science Foundation 2018 - 2019
- Control and Spectroscopy of Single Molecular Ions awarded by Army Research Office 2018 - 2019
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Book Sections
  - Merrill, JT, and Brown, KR. "Progress in compensating pulse sequences for quantum computation." January 1, 2014. 241-294.
- Conference Papers
  - Javadi-Abhari, A, Gokhale, P, Holmes, A, Franklin, D, Brown, KR, Martonosi, M, and Chong, FT. "Optimized surface code communication in superconducting quantum computers." October 14, 2017. Full Text
  - Heckey, J, Patil, S, JavadiAbhari, A, Holmes, A, Kudrow, D, Brown, KR, Franklin, D, Chong, FT, and Martonosi, M. "Compiler Management of Communication and Parallelism for Quantum Computation." March 14, 2015. Full Text
  - Kudrow, D, Bier, K, Deng, Z, Franklin, D, Tomita, Y, Brown, KR, and Chong, FT. "Quantum rotations: A case study in static and dynamic machine-code generation for quantum computers." August 12, 2013. Full Text
  - Brown, KR. "Sympathetic heating spectroscopy: Probing molecular ions with laser-cooled atomic ions." December 1, 2010.
  - Home, JP, Jost, JD, Amini, JM, Biercuk, MJ, Blakestad, RB, Bollinger, JJ, Britton, JW, Brown, KR, Hanneke, D, Hume, D, Itano, WM, Knill, E, Langer, C, Leibfried, D, Ospelkaus, C, Ozeri, R, Rosenband, T, Seidelin, S, Uys, H, VanDevender, AP, Walrath, N, Wesenburg, J, and Wineland, DJ. "Progress towards scalable quantum information processing with trapped ions." January 1, 2008.
- Journal Articles
  - Calvin, AT, and Brown, KR. "Spectroscopy of Molecular Ions in Coulomb Crystals." The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters 9.19 (October 2018): 5797-5804. Full Text
  - Leung, PH, and Brown, KR. "Entangling an arbitrary pair of qubits in a long ion crystal." Physical Review A 98.3 (September 18, 2018). Full Text
  - Brown, NC, and Brown, KR. "Comparing Zeeman qubits to hyperfine qubits in the context of the surface code: and." Physical Review A 97.5 (May 2018). Full Text
  - Trout, CJ, Li, M, Gutiérrez, M, Wu, Y, Wang, S-T, Duan, L, and Brown, KR. "Simulating the performance of a distance-3 surface code in a linear ion trap." New Journal of Physics 20.4 (April 1, 2018): 043038-043038. Full Text
  - Calvin, AT, Janardan, S, Condoluci, J, Rugango, R, Pretzsch, E, Shu, G, and Brown, KR. "Rovibronic Spectroscopy of Sympathetically Cooled 40CaH." The Journal of Physical Chemistry. A 122.12 (March 16, 2018): 3177-3181. Full Text
  - Leung, PH, Landsman, KA, Figgatt, C, Linke, NM, Monroe, C, and Brown, KR. "Robust 2-Qubit Gates in a Linear Ion Crystal Using a Frequency-Modulated Driving Force." Physical Review Letters 120.2 (January 2018): 020501-null. Full Text
  - Condoluci, J, Janardan, S, Calvin, AT, Rugango, R, Shu, G, Sherrill, CD, and Brown, KR. "Reassigning the CaH+ 11Σ → 21Σ vibronic transition with CaD." The Journal of chemical physics 147.21 (December 2017): 214309-. Full Text
  - Linke, NM, Gutierrez, M, Landsman, KA, Figgatt, C, Debnath, S, Brown, KR, and Monroe, C. "Fault-tolerant quantum error detection." Science Advances 3.10 (October 20, 2017): e1701074-null. Full Text
  - Li, M, Gutiérrez, M, David, SE, Hernandez, A, and Brown, KR. "Fault tolerance with bare ancillary qubits for a [[7,1,3]] code." Physical Review A 96.3 (September 2017). Full Text
  - Brown, KR, Kim, J, and Monroe, C. "Co-designing a scalable quantum computer with trapped atomic ions." npj Quantum Information 2.1 (November 2016). Full Text
  - Rugango, R, Calvin, AT, Janardan, S, Shu, G, and Brown, KR. "Vibronic Spectroscopy of Sympathetically Cooled CaH." Chemphyschem : a European journal of chemical physics and physical chemistry 17.22 (November 2016): 3764-3768. Full Text
  - Gutiérrez, M, Smith, C, Lulushi, L, Janardan, S, and Brown, KR. "Errors and pseudothresholds for incoherent and coherent noise." Physical Review A 94.4 (October 2016). Full Text
  - Fallek, SD, Herold, CD, McMahon, BJ, Maller, KM, Brown, KR, and Amini, JM. "Transport implementation of the Bernstein–Vazirani algorithm with ion qubits." New Journal of Physics 18.8 (August 1, 2016): 083030-083030. Full Text
  - Janardan, S, Tomita, Y, Gutiérrez, M, and Brown, KR. "Analytical error analysis of Clifford gates by the fault-path tracer method." Quantum Information Processing 15.8 (August 2016): 3065-3079. Full Text
  - Rugango, R, Sinhal, M, Shu, G, and Brown, KR. "Trapping and Sympathetic Cooling of Boron Ions." (2016). Link to Item
  - Mount, E, Kabytayev, C, Crain, S, Harper, R, Baek, S-Y, Vrijsen, G, Flammia, ST, Brown, KR, Maunz, P, and Kim, J. "Error compensation of single-qubit gates in a surface-electrode ion trap using composite pulses." Physical Review A 92.6 (December 2015). Full Text Open Access Copy
  - deLaubenfels, TE, Burkhardt, KA, Vittorini, G, Merrill, JT, Brown, KR, and Amini, JM. "Modulating carrier and sideband coupling strengths in a standing-wave gate beam." Physical Review A 92.6 (December 2015). Full Text
  - Trout, CJ, and Brown, KR. "Magic state distillation and gate compilation in quantum algorithms for quantum chemistry." Ed. M Reiher. International Journal of Quantum Chemistry 115.19 (October 5, 2015): 1296-1304. Full Text
  - Rugango, R, Goeders, JE, Dixon, TH, Gray, JM, Khanyile, NB, Shu, G, Clark, RJ, and Brown, KR. "Sympathetic cooling of molecular ion motion to the ground state." New Journal of Physics 17.3 (March 1, 2015): 035009-035009. Full Text
  - Gutiérrez, M, and Brown, KR. "Comparison of a quantum error-correction threshold for exact and approximate errors." Physical Review A 91.2 (February 2015). Full Text
  - Khanyile, NB, Shu, G, and Brown, KR. "Observation of vibrational overtones by single-molecule resonant photodissociation." Nature communications 6 (January 2015): 7825-. Full Text
  - Merrill, JT, Doret, SC, Vittorini, G, Addison, JP, and Brown, KR. "Transformed composite sequences for improved qubit addressing." Physical Review A 90.4 (October 2014). Full Text
  - Kabytayev, C, Green, TJ, Khodjasteh, K, Biercuk, MJ, Viola, L, and Brown, KR. "Robustness of composite pulses to time-dependent control noise." Physical Review A 90.1 (July 2014). Full Text
  - Shu, G, Vittorini, G, Buikema, A, Nichols, CS, Volin, C, Stick, D, and Brown, KR. "Heating rates and ion-motion control in a -junction surface-electrode trap." Physical Review A 89.6 (June 2014). Full Text
  - Monroe, C, Raussendorf, R, Ruthven, A, Brown, KR, Maunz, P, Duan, L-M, and Kim, J. "Large-scale modular quantum-computer architecture with atomic memory and photonic interconnects." Physical Review A 89.2 (February 2014). Full Text
  - Brown, KR. "Physics Probing the electron." Science (New York, N.Y.) 343.6168 (January 2014): 255-256. Full Text
  - Goeders, JE, Clark, CR, Vittorini, G, Wright, K, Viteri, CR, and Brown, KR. "Identifying single molecular ions by resolved sideband measurements." The Journal of Physical Chemistry. A 117.39 (October 2013): 9725-9731. Full Text
  - Tomita, Y, Gutiérrez, M, Kabytayev, C, Brown, KR, Hutsel, MR, Morris, AP, Stevens, KE, and Mohler, G. "Comparison of ancilla preparation and measurement procedures for the Steane [[7,1,3]] code on a model ion-trap quantum computer." Physical Review A 88.4 (October 2013). Full Text
  - Shappert, CM, Merrill, JT, Brown, KR, Amini, JM, Volin, C, Doret, SC, Hayden, H, Pai, C-S, Brown, KR, and Harter, AW. "Spatially uniform single-qubit gate operations with near-field microwaves and composite pulse compensation." New Journal of Physics 15.8 (August 1, 2013): 083053-083053. Full Text
  - Vittorini, G, Wright, K, Brown, KR, Harter, AW, and Doret, SC. "Modular cryostat for ion trapping with surface-electrode ion traps." The Review of scientific instruments 84.4 (April 2013): 043112-. Full Text
  - Gutiérrez, M, Svec, L, Vargo, A, and Brown, KR. "Approximation of realistic errors by Clifford channels and Pauli measurements." Physical Review A 87.3 (March 2013). Full Text
  - Sarvepalli, P, and Brown, KR. "Topological subsystem codes from graphs and hypergraphs." Physical Review A 86.4 (October 2012). Full Text
  - True Merrill, J, Volin, C, Landgren, D, Amini, JM, Wright, K, Charles Doret, S, Pai, C-S, Hayden, H, Killian, T, Faircloth, D, Brown, KR, Harter, AW, and Slusher, RE. "Demonstration of integrated microscale optics in surface-electrode ion traps." New Journal of Physics 13.10 (October 1, 2011): 103005-103005. Full Text
  - Nguyen, JHV, Viteri, CR, Hohenstein, EG, Sherrill, CD, Brown, KR, and Odom, B. "Challenges of laser-cooling molecular ions." New Journal of Physics 13.6 (June 1, 2011): 063023-063023. Full Text
  - Tomita, Y, Viteri, CR, and Brown, KR. "Analytical solution of thermal magnetization on memory stabilizer structures." Physical Review A 82.4 (October 2010). Full Text
  - Crosson, IJ, Bacon, D, and Brown, KR. "Making classical ground-state spin computing fault-tolerant." Physical review. E, Statistical, nonlinear, and soft matter physics 82.3 Pt 1 (September 3, 2010): 031106-. Full Text
  - Clark, CR, Goeders, JE, Dodia, YK, Viteri, CR, and Brown, KR. "Detection of single-ion spectra by Coulomb-crystal heating." Physical Review A 81.4 (April 2010). Full Text
  - Brown, KR. "Quantum computing: chemistry from photons." Nature Chemistry 2.2 (February 2010): 76-77. Full Text
  - Tomita, Y, Merrill, JT, and Brown, KR. "Multi-qubit compensation sequences." New Journal of Physics 12.1 (January 1, 2010): 015002-015002. Full Text
  - Viteri, CR, Tomita, Y, and Brown, KR. "Monte Carlo analysis of critical phenomenon of the Ising model on memory stabilizer structures." Physical Review A 80.4 (October 2009). Full Text
  - Tanaka, U, Naka, R, Iwata, F, Ujimaru, T, Brown, KR, Chuang, IL, and Urabe, S. "Design and characterization of a planar trap." Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics 42.15 (August 14, 2009): 154006-154006. Full Text
  - Clark, CR, Metodi, TS, Gasster, SD, and Brown, KR. "Resource requirements for fault-tolerant quantum simulation: The ground state of the transverse Ising model." Physical Review A 79.6 (June 2009). Full Text
  - Clark, RJ, Lin, T, Brown, KR, and Chuang, IL. "A two-dimensional lattice ion trap for quantum simulation." Journal of Applied Physics 105.1 (January 2009): 013114-013114. Full Text
  - Ospelkaus, C, Langer, CE, Amini, JM, Brown, KR, Leibfried, D, and Wineland, DJ. "Trapped-ion quantum logic gates based on oscillating magnetic fields." Physical review letters 101.9 (August 29, 2008): 090502-. Full Text
  - Labaziewicz, J, Ge, Y, Antohi, P, Leibrandt, D, Brown, KR, and Chuang, IL. "Suppression of heating rates in cryogenic surface-electrode ion traps." Physical review letters 100.1 (January 10, 2008): 013001-. Full Text
  - Leibrandt, DR, Clark, RJ, Labaziewicz, J, Antohi, P, Bakr, W, Brown, KR, and Chuang, IL. "Laser ablation loading of a surface-electrode ion trap." Physical Review A 76.5 (November 2007). Full Text
  - Brown, K, Britton, J, Epstein, R, Chiaverini, J, Leibfried, D, and Wineland, D. "Passive Cooling of a Micromechanical Oscillator with a Resonant Electric Circuit." Physical Review Letters 99.13 (September 2007). Full Text
  - Brown, KR. "Energy protection arguments fail in the interaction picture." Physical Review A 76.2 (August 2007). Full Text
  - Labaziewicz, J, Richerme, P, Brown, KR, Chuang, IL, and Hayasaka, K. "Compact, filtered diode laser system for precision spectroscopy." Optics letters 32.5 (March 2007): 572-574. Full Text
  - Brown, KR, Clark, RJ, Labaziewicz, J, Richerme, P, Leibrandt, DR, and Chuang, IL. "Loading and characterization of a printed-circuit-board atomic ion trap." Physical Review A 75.1 (January 2007). Full Text
  - Brown, KR, Clark, RJ, and Chuang, IL. "Limitations of Quantum Simulation Examined by Simulating a Pairing Hamiltonian Using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance." Physical Review Letters 97.5 (August 2006). Full Text
  - Pearson, CE, Leibrandt, DR, Bakr, WS, Mallard, WJ, Brown, KR, and Chuang, IL. "Experimental investigation of planar ion traps." Physical Review A 73.3 (March 2006). Full Text
  - Moore, K, Purdy, T, Murch, K, Brown, K, Dani, K, Gupta, S, and Stamper-Kurn, D. "Bose–Einstein condensation in a mm-scale Ioffe–Pritchard trap." Applied Physics B 82.4 (February 14, 2006): 533-538. Full Text
  - Brown, KR, Harrow, AW, and Chuang, IL. "Erratum: Arbitrarily accurate composite pulse sequences [Phys. Rev. A 70 , 052318 (2004)]." Physical Review A 72.3 (September 2005). Full Text
  - Storcz, MJ, Vala, J, Brown, KR, Kempe, J, Wilhelm, FK, and Whaley, KB. "Full protection of superconducting qubit systems from coupling errors." Physical Review B 72.6 (August 2005). Full Text
  - Yu, TM, Brown, KR, and Chuang, IL. "Bounds on the entanglement attainable from unitary transformed thermal states in liquid-state nuclear magnetic resonance." Physical Review A 71.3 (March 2005). Full Text
  - Brown, KR, Harrow, AW, and Chuang, IL. "Arbitrarily accurate composite pulse sequences." Physical Review A 70.5 (November 2004). Full Text
  - Leslie, S, Shenvi, N, Brown, KR, Stamper-Kurn, DM, and Whaley, KB. "Transmission spectrum of an optical cavity containing atoms." Physical Review A 69.4 (April 2004). Full Text
  - Shenvi, N, Brown, KR, and Whaley, KB. "Effects of a random noisy oracle on search algorithm complexity." Physical Review A 68.5 (November 2003). Full Text
  - Brown, KR, Dani, KM, Stamper-Kurn, DM, and Whaley, KB. "Deterministic optical Fock-state generation." Physical Review A 67.4 (April 2003). Full Text
  - Brown, KR, Vala, J, and Whaley, KB. "Scalable ion trap quantum computation in decoherence-free subspaces with pairwise interactions only." Physical Review A 67.1 (January 2003). Full Text
  - Brown, KR, Lidar, DA, and Whaley, KB. "Quantum computing with quantum dots on quantum linear supports." Physical Review A 65.1 (December 2001). Full Text
  - Bacon, D, Brown, KR, and Whaley, KB. "Coherence-Preserving Quantum Bits." Physical Review Letters 87.24 (November 2001). Full Text
  - Sullivan, MB, Brown, K, Cramer, CJ, and Truhlar, DG. "Quantum Chemical Analysis of para -Substitution Effects on the Electronic Structure of Phenylnitrenium Ions in the Gas Phase and Aqueous Solution [ J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1998 , 120 , 11778−11783]." Journal of the American Chemical Society 121.47 (December 1999): 11026-11026. Full Text
  - Sullivan, MB, Brown, K, Cramer, CJ, and Truhlar, DG. "Quantum Chemical Analysis of para -Substitution Effects on the Electronic Structure of Phenylnitrenium Ions in the Gas Phase and Aqueous Solution." Journal of the American Chemical Society 120.45 (November 1998): 11778-11783. Full Text
  - Beale, S, Wallman, J, Gutiérrez, M, Brown, KR, and Laflamme, R. "Coherence in quantum error-correcting codes." . Link to Item
  - Li, M, Miller, D, and Brown, KR. "Direct measurement of Bacon-Shor code stabilizers." Link to Item
Teaching & Mentoring
Recent Courses

Some information on this profile has been compiled automatically from Duke databases and external sources. (Our About page explains how this works.) If you see a problem with the information, please write to Scholars@Duke and let us know. We will reply promptly.

Education, Training, & Certifications

Duke Appointment History

Academic Positions Outside Duke

In the News

Awards & Honors

Selected Grants

Selected Publications

Book Sections

Conference Papers

Journal Articles

Recent Courses