Cool atoms for quantum technology

Cold atoms offer a wonderful platform for quantum technologies for novel sensing, timing and of course quantum computation. I will describe how atoms and ions are cooled and state prepared for such applications, drawing on the UK National Quantum Technology Programme. Prospects for applications will be explored for time standards and sensors. In the longer term, laser cooled atoms and ions offer great potential for information processing. Universal quantum computers will be able to act as simulators of any system. But a simpler quantum device, able to mimic a real system, does not have to be a quantum computer. Such devices are quantum simulators; they are not universal but are simpler to construct. We expect early quantum simulators to be developed relatively soon, allowing certain regimes of problems, intractable for classical computers, to be solved. Cold atoms make good simulators: they provide naturally identical qubits without the need for high-quality materials fabrication. Quantum simulators with networked laser cooled trapped ions or cold atoms in optical lattices are already able to provide information about problems inaccessible to classical computers. Scaling of quantum processors to hundreds of qubits or more is a major engineering challenge, but arrays of ion or atom-based qubits offer great potential that is being rapidly explored around the world.