PhD studentship in Quantum Error Correction

A fully funded four-year PhD position is available to work on the project titled “Decoding Quantum Error Correction Protocols for Neutral Atom Quantum Computers”. This position is a collaborative studentship between the University of Edinburgh and the National Quantum Computing Centre (https://www.nqcc.ac.uk). The position will be registered and hosted at the University of Edinburgh and will be jointly supervised by:

• Dr Joschka Roffe, School of Informatics, University of Edinburgh
• Dr Oliver Brown, Edinburgh Parallel Computing Centre (EPCC), University of Edinburgh
• Dr Nicholas Spong, National Quantum Computing Centre (NQCC), Harwell, Oxfordshire

Over the course of the studentship students will be offered a minimum of three months to work at the NQCC to apply their research within the national labs framework.

This position is part of an annual NQCC cohort of 6 collaborative studentships, in which the projects have been co-developed by the NQCC and different academic institutes across the UK. The scheme will include cohort-based training and activities, enabling students to gain wider skills and develop valuable personal and professional networks.

Neutral atom quantum computers with hundreds of qubits are becoming an increasingly common feature of quantum technology laboratories worldwide. However, like all current qubit technologies, scaling up neutral atom quantum computing systems is challenging due many factors including their susceptibility to errors. For context, state-of-the-art neutral atom quantum computers still fail in over one in a hundred gate operations, making them significantly less reliable than classical CPUs using transistor-based gates, where error rates are commonly less than one in a hundred trillion.

Quantum error correction (QEC) offers a powerful suite of system-level techniques designed to enable reliable quantum computation despite imperfect qubit gate operations. The core idea is to distribute the information encoded in a single qubit across multiple qubits, creating a so-called logical qubit. QEC protocols operate by continuously measuring and validating correlations between the physical qubits that make up each logical qubit. Deviations from the expected correlations represent errors. These can be detected without measuring (and thus collapsing) the qubit state, and associated errors can be precisely located and corrected.

Logical qubits are set to become the fundamental building blocks of scalable quantum computers, enabling groundbreaking applications beyond the capabilities of conventional computing technologies. Neutral atom quantum computers present a particularly exciting architecture for exploring QEC; their high connectivity — facilitated through qubit shuttling — allows them to support a wide range of QEC protocols.

A crucial component of any QEC protocol is its decoder — a classical co-processor responsible for processing QEC readout information in real time to ensure that suitable corrections are applied before qubits decohere. Decoding algorithms must be fast, accurate, and ideally suited for parallel implementation on specialised hardware. Engineering effective interfaces between quantum hardware and classical co-processors is a pivotal challenge in the design of full-scale neutral atom quantum computing systems.

As part of this PhD project, you will be at the forefront of designing, simulating, and benchmarking QEC protocols for the NQCC's neutral atom quantum computing system. You will engineer bespoke decoders on specialised hardware, exploring the implementation and decoding of advanced protocols such as surface codes, colour codes, and quantum low-density parity-check codes. Decoding algorithms will be prototyped on GPUs before being optimised for implementation on FPGAs, ASICs, or RISC-V boards. Collaborating closely with NQCC scientists, you will integrate hardware decoders into the neutral atom experimental setup to enable real-time decoding and demonstrate practical fault-tolerant quantum computing.

This PhD position will allow you to contribute to the development of a critical component in the NQCC’s neutral atom quantum computing system. The project is highly interdisciplinary, blending cutting-edge concepts from computer science, mathematics, physics, and engineering. Upon completion, you will have acquired a diverse skill set in practical quantum computing design that is highly sought after in the quantum computing sector, both in academia and industry.

• Knowledge of quantum computing and an understanding of challenges of building large-scale systems
• Programming skills in Python
• A good Bachelor’s Hons degree (2.1 or above or international equivalent) and/or Master’s degree in a relevant subject (physics, mathematics, engineering, computer science, or related subject)
• Proficiency in English (both oral and written)
• Programming skills in C/C++, Rust or other relevant low-level languages is desirable
• Experience programming GPUs, FPGAs, ASICs or other specialised hardware is desirable

The studentship covers:

• Full time PhD tuition fees for a student with a Home fee status (£4,786* per annum) 
• A tax free stipend of £23,600 per year
• A generous support package to fund relevant equipment and travel

*Rates are for 24/25 as 25/26 rates not yet confirmed

Applicants should apply via the University’s admissions portal (EUCLID) and apply for the following programme:

https://postgraduate.degrees.ed.ac.uk/index.php?r=site/view&edition=2025&id=1130 with a start date of 01 September 2025

Applicants should state “Decoding Quantum Error Correction Protocols for Neutral Atom Quantum Computers” and the research supervisor (Joschka Roffe) in their application and Research Proposal document. 

Complete applications submitted by 31st January will receive full consideration; after that date applications will be considered until the position is filled. The anticipated start date is 01 September 2025 but later start dates can be considered.

Applicants must submit:

• All degree transcripts and certificates (and certified translations if applicable)
• Evidence of English Language capability (where applicable)
• A short research proposal (max 2 pages)
• A full CV and cover letter describing your background, suitability for the PhD, and research interests (max 2 pages)
• Two references (note that it the applicant’s responsibility to ensure reference letters are received before the deadline)

Only complete applications (i.e. those that are not missing the above documentation) will progress forward to Academic Selectors for further consideration. 

The School of Informatics is one of the largest in Europe and currently the top Informatics institute in the UK for research power, with 40% of its research outputs considered world-leading (top grade), and almost 50% considered top grade for societal impact. The University of Edinburgh is constantly ranked among the world’s top universities and is a highly international environment with several centres of excellence.