Isaac Chuang '90

Professor of Physics
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
A pioneer in the field of quantum information science.

Research Interests

How can physical systems represent and process information?

Can Nature be better understood in terms of information and computation?

Keywords: Quantum information science, AMO implementations of quantum computers, Entanglement and cryptography, Quantum algorithms, Spin detection and manipulation, Architectures for quantum information systems

Biographic Sketch

Prof. Chuang is a pioneer in the field of quantum information science. His experimental realization of two, three, five, and seven quantum bit quantum computers using nuclear spins in molecules provided the first laboratory demonstrations of many important quantum algorithms, including Shor’s quantum factoring algorithm. The error correction, algorithmic cooling, and entanglement manipulation techniques he developed provide new ways to obtain complete quantum control over light and matter, and lay a foundation for possible large-scale quantum information processing systems.

Prof. Chuang came to MIT in 2000 from IBM, where he was a research staff member. He received his doctorate in Electrical Engineering from Stanford University, where he was a Hertz Foundation Fellow. Prof. Chuang also holds two bachelors and one masters degrees in Physics and Electrical Engineering from MIT, and was a post-doctoral fellow at Los Alamos National Laboratory and the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author, together with Michael Nielsen, of the textbook Quantum Computation and Quantum Information.

Awards & Honors

  • 2010 // American Physical Society Fellow "For his breadth and leadership in the field of quantum information science, including important theoretical discoveries and the exploration of experimental implementations."
  • 2008 // NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) grant
  • 1999 // MIT Technology Review Top 100 Innovators in the World Under 35
  • 1997 // Hertz Foundation Fellow

Key Publications

  • Andrew A. Houck; Jeffrey B. Brock; and Isaac L. Chuang. Experimental observations of a left,handed material that obeys Snell’s law. Phys. Rev. Lett.; 90 pp. 137401; 2003.

  • M. Steffen; Wim van Dam; Tad Hogg; Greg Breyta; and I. L. Chuang. Experimental implementation of an adiabatic quantum optimization algorithm. Phys. Rev. Lett.; 90 pp. 067903; 2003.

  • L. M. K. Vandersypen; M. Steffen; G. Breyta; C. S. Yannoni; M. Sherwood; and I. L. Chuang. Experimental realization of Shor’s quantum factoring algorithm using nuclear magnetic resonance. Nature; 414 pp. 883; 2001.