DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Responsive to the communication dated 10/14/2025.
Claims 1, 4, 6, 13, 16, 29, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 30 currently amended.
Claims 31, 32, 33 are newly presented.
Claim 7 previously cancelled. No claims currently cancelled.
Claims 1 – 6, 8 - 33 are presented for examination.
Final Action
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Information Disclosure Statement
IDS dated 10/14/2025 has been reviewed. See attached.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claim 33 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 33 recites “… (f) reloading at least one third atom into said atom source…”. The Applicant stated in the remarks that paragraph 4, 79, 79, 90 and 142 provided support for all the claim amendments, however, a review of these paragraphs shows no disclosure of “reloading at least one third atom”. Additionally, there is a question as to how one could even reload 1/3 of an atom.
Response to Arguments
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The Applicant has amended the independent claim to recite:
“… and reloading at least one second atom from an atom source into said second array to increase a fill factor of said second array, wherein said atom source is distinct from said first array, wherein at least some of said plurality of atoms are maintained in said first array during said reloading in (c), wherein said atom source comprises one or more multi-atom trapping regions, and wherein said atom source does not have a plurality of spatially distinct optical trapping sites.”
The Applicant makes several arguments which are similar in nature to arguments previously presented and previously responded to. The several arguments question whether the art of record makes obvious the reloading of the second array. The Applicant asserts that the art of record does not make reloading obvious because Kim_2021 illustrates a set of tweezer arrays and teaches that the arrays operate as a to convey atoms from one array to the next. The Applicant insists that this does not make “reloading” obvious and that the teachings of Kim_2021 cannot server to maintain the calculations indefinitely.
In response the arguments are not persuasive because the Applicant is overlooking key teachings of Kim_2021. Take for example, paragraph 2 which states:
“… A typical approach to creating such arrays is to load atoms into reconfigurable
optical tweezers from a magneto-optical trap (MOT) and then rearrange the loaded tweezers into a target atom geometry. See M. Endres, H. Bernien, A. Keesling, H. Levine, E. R. Anschuetz, A. Krajenbrink, C. Senko, V. Vuletic, M. Greiner, and M. D. Lukin, Atom-by-atom assembly of defect-free one-dimensional cold atom arrays, Science vol. 354 (6315) p. 1024-1027 (2016), which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.”
The Examiner notes that the above citation is clearly teaching to load an array from a MOT. The MOT is separate and distinct from the “target atom geometry” which is, for example, the plurality of arrays illustrated in the various drawings of Kim_2021. Accordingly, the MOT is therefore distinct from the first and second array.
Further, the above citation incorporates all the teachings of M. Endres, H. Bernien, A. Keesling, H. Levine, E. R. Anschuetz, A. Krajenbrink, C. Senko, V. Vuletic, M. Greiner, and M. D. Lukin, Atom-by-atom assembly of defect-free one-dimensional cold atom arrays, Science vol. 354 (6315) p. 1024-1027 (2016), herein referred to as Endres_2016.
Therefore, the specification of Kim_2021 includes all the teachings of Endres_2016.
Endres_2016 explicitly states:
Page 1: “… the tweezer array is loaded from a laser-cooled cloud of Rubidium-87 atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT)…”
Page 3: “… in combination with periodic reservoir reloading from a cloud atom source (such as a MOT), could be used to maintain arrays indefinitely…:
The above two citations to Endres_2016 which is incorporated into Kim_2021 and therefore part of the teachings of Kim_2021 clearly teach atoms in the MOT are in a cloud and that the array is reloaded from the cloud in the MOT and doing this maintains the array indefinitely.
Therefore, contrary to the Applicant’s assertion, the teachings of Kim_2021 explicitly teach that calculation area can run indefinitely because the array can be maintained indefinitely by the act of reloading. Further, the teaching of “cloud” makes obvious that the MOT does not have a plurality of spatially distinct optical trapping sites.
End Response to Arguments
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 2, 4, 5, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16, 21, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 3, 17, 18, 19, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vala_2005 (Quantum Error Correction of a Qubit Loss in an Addressable Atomic System, 2005) in view of Kim_2021 (WO 2021/231378 A2) in view of Endres_2016 (Atom-by-atom assembly of defect-free one-dimensional cold atom arrays, Science vol. 354 (6315) p. 1024-1027 (2016))
Claim 1. Kim_2021 makes obvious A method (abstract: “we present a scheme for correcting qubit loss error while quantum computing with neutral atoms in an addressable optical lattice…”; page 1: “… in this paper we present a scheme to correct qubit loss error during quantum computation with neutral atoms. We specifically consider neutral atoms in an addressable optical lattice, although the method could be applied to any neutral atom system…”; page 2: “… correcting a qubit error loss is to transform the loss into a standard quantum error using a sequence of physical operations…” ) for preparing a sample of atoms (page 1: “… reliable quantum computation in optical lattices will require correction of such qubit loss errors…”; page 2: Error Correction… the process of qubit loss and its correction can be described as the following sequence… the density matrix describing the pure state of the quantum computer…”; NOTE: the correction of lost qubits prepares the sample of atoms in the addressable lattice for the subsequent quantum computation to be reliable.), the method comprising:
Trapping a plurality of atoms in a first array, wherein said first array comprises a first plurality of spatially distinct optical trapping sites (page 1: “… the quantum computer under consideration consists of a lattice of neutral atoms, here 87Rb, trapped in perpendicular standing waves of linearly polarized laser beams [4, 13]. The lattice is characterized by a large lattice constant a – 5um and is therefore addressable, meaning that each atom can be individually controlled by an optical field… two-dimensional lattice. It is initialized into a perfect lattice with a single atom per lattice site…”; page 2: “… the density matrix describing the pure state of the quantum computer… stage (1) describes the initial pure state of the quantum computer… using the density matrix notation of [15], i.e., p = [EQUATION], the initial state…”);
Transferring at least one first atom from a second array into said first array (page 4: “… Conditional Source. The conditional source can be implemented in an addressable optical lattice using an optical tweezer dipole trap to transport an atom in the qubit ground state |0> from a reservoir lattice (‘conveyor belt lattice’) to the computational lattice. NOTE: the first array is the computational lattice. The second array is the reservoir lattice (‘conveyor belt lattice’) to increase a fill factor of said first array (page 2: “… the density matrix describing the pure state of the quantum computer, and Perr,I is the quantum computer state after the qubit loss error… Stage (1) describes the initial pure state of the quantum computer that, in stage (2), loses a qubit at the site i… at stage (3), a new atom in the qubit ground state is inserted at the empty site by action of a source that is conditional…” NOTE: the density matrix is indicative of the fill factor before a loss error. The loss error decreases the fill factor. Stage 3 adds an atom at the empty site thereby restoring the fill factor/density matrix back up to its original/pre-error fill factor.) wherein said second array comprises a second plurality of spatially distinct optical trapping sites (page 1: The lattice is characterized by a large lattice constant a – 5um and is therefore addressable, meaning that each atom can be individually controlled by an optical field… two-dimensional lattice…”; page 3: “… a 3D lattice…”; page 4: “… Conditional Source. The conditional source can be implemented in an addressable optical lattice using an optical tweezer…”);
Kim_2021 makes obvious “and reloading at least one second atom from an atom source into said second array to increase a fill factor of said second array,wherein at least some of said plurality of atoms are maintained in said first array during said reloading in (c), wherein said atom source comprises one or more multi-atom trapping regions, ” (FIG 5A and FIG. 3. NOTE: As illustrated in the annotated figures below, Kim_2021 illustrates set of 2D and 3D optical trap arrays that hold atoms in, for example, addressable X,Y,Z coordinates. Kim_2021 teaches to transfer atoms from optical trap locations that have atoms into optical trap locations that do not have atoms, forming a pipeline or conveyor belt of atoms. Looking at FIG. 5A, the 2-D optical array/lattice at Z1 has a missing atom in the lower right side. The 2D arrays at Z2 – Z3 have atoms in the lower right side. Therefore, Atom from Z2 can be transferred into Z1 and an atom from Z3 can be transferred into empty space of Z2 when the Z2 atom is transferred into Z1. In this way, Z3 is a source of atoms for Z2 and reloads Z2 when Z2 atoms are transferred to Z1.
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The same concept hold at, for example, FIG. 3 where there is also a missing atom on the lower right side (position 4 on the X axis). At K=0 the atoms above {(4,1) (4,1) (4, 3) (4, 4) (4, 5) (4, 7)} are selected to be transferred. For example, atom at address (4,1) is transferred to address (4,0) and atom at address (4,2) is transferred to address (4, 1), and atom at address (4,3) is transferred to address (4,2). In the process backfilling the empty address of the previously moved atom each successive address is reloaded. Therefore address (4, 2) is the source of the atom which reloaded address (4,1) when the atoms at address (4,1) is transferred to address (4,0). Further, notice that the atoms at address (1, 0) and (3,0) are maintained during the transfer of atoms.
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Additionally, the individual rows and/or columns of a 2-dimensional lattice are multi-atom trapping regions.).
Vala_2005 and Kim_2021 are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor called quantum trapping arrays. Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine Vala_2005 and Kim_2021. The rationale for doing so would have been that Vala_2005 teaches that atoms in arrays can experience errors (i.e., be lost) and to correct such errors/losses/leakages by replacing the lost atoms. The replacement is done by transferring atoms from a reservoir lattice (‘conveyor belt lattice’) to a computation lattice. Kim_2021 teaches a system of lattices which transfer atoms in order fill up optical lattice locations that are missing atoms. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine the error correction method taught by Vala_2005 which transfers atoms from a source reservoir lattice to a computation lattice in a conveyor belt fashion with the system of optical lattices that transfer atoms to empty addresses taught by Kim_2021 for the benefit of correcting errors in a computation lattice to obtain the invention as specified in the claims.
Endres_2016 further makes obvious “reloading at least one second atom from an atom source” and “wherein said atom source is distinct from said first array,” and “and wherein said atom source does not have a plurality of spatially distinct optical trapping sites” (Page 1: “… the tweezer array is loaded from a laser-cooled cloud of Rubidium-87 atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT)…”Page 3: “… in combination with periodic reservoir reloading from a cloud atom source (such as a MOT), could be used to maintain arrays indefinitely…” EXAMINER NOTE: this clearly teachs atoms in the MOT are in a cloud and that the array is reloaded from the cloud in the MOT and doing this maintains the array indefinitely.
Kim_2021 and Endres_2016 are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor called quantum trapping arrays. Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine Kim_2021 and Endres_2016. Because Kim_2021 explicitly incorporates all the teachings of Endres_2016 into their specification. See paragraph 2 of Kim_2021.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Kim_2021 and Endres_2016 because Kim_2021 said to.
Claim 2. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “wherein said reloading in (c) is performed at least partially during said transferring in (b)” (par 74: “… operable to simultaneously move multiple atoms within the plurality of switching optical taps…”; par 85: “… at least two of the plurality of atoms are simultaneously moved…”; par 89: “… the plurality of atoms are simultaneously moved…” NOTE: therefore; Kim_2021 teaches to perform a plurality of transfers simultaneously which means they occur at least partially during the same time).
Claim 4. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “further comprising (e) performing an operation comprising a sensing application (abstract: “… a sensor configured to detect atoms within the plurality of switchable optical traps… scanner being based at least in part on sensor data generated by the sensor detecting atoms within the plurality of switchable optical traps…”), or a non-classical computation, wherein performing said computation uses at least a first subset of said plurality of atoms (par 2: “… quantum computation and quantum simulations…”; par 39: “… enabling long-lived quantum memories… for many applications, including fast multi-qubit quantum gates…”; par 67 – 71: “… in some embodiments, rather than the simple QAOA MIS experiment on the unit disk graph, many other types of algorithms could be implemented, such as individual qubit gate sequences, or the like…”).
Vala_2005 further makes obvious “further comprising (e) performing an operation comprising a sensing application, a time-keeping operation (page 2: “… measurements are made periodically on all atoms in order to identify the presence or absence of atoms at each site… a new atom in the qubit ground state is inserted at the empty site by action of a source…” NOTE: this teaches a sensing application for sensing atoms and also teachings a time-keeping operation because the sensing is performed periodically), or a non-classical computation, wherein performing said computation uses at least a first subset of said plurality of atoms (page 1: “…the net quantum error is equivalent to a standard qubit error due to spontaneous emission of the photon, so it can be corrected by standard quantom error correction… the logical qubit encoded into four physical qubits of the GBP code, is reconstructed via a sequence of one projective measurement, two single-qubit gates and three controlled-NOT operations…” page 2: “… Error Correction… qubit loss is to transform the loss into a standard quantum error using a sequence of physical operation… described as the following sequence… quantum computer state after the qubit loss error at the site i…” NOTE: quantum computer calculations are “non-classical” computations).
Claim 5. Vala_2005 further makes obvious “wherein said reloading in (c) is performed during at least part of said performing in (e)” (page 2: “… measurements are made periodically on all atoms in order to identify the presence or absence of atoms at each site… a new atom in the qubit ground state is inserted at the empty site by action of a source…” NOTE: this teaches a sensing application for sensing atoms and also teachings a time-keeping operation because the sensing is performed periodically and this is done a part of the reloading process and therefore reloading is performed during at least part of performing e.
page 1: “…the net quantum error is equivalent to a standard qubit error due to spontaneous emission of the photon, so it can be corrected by standard quantom error correction… the logical qubit encoded into four physical qubits of the GBP code, is reconstructed via a sequence of one projective measurement, two single-qubit gates and three controlled-NOT operations…” page 2: “… Error Correction… qubit loss is to transform the loss into a standard quantum error using a sequence of physical operation… described as the following sequence… quantum computer state after the qubit loss error at the site i…” NOTE: quantum computer calculations are “non-classical” computations that are occurring as part of the reloading.).
Claim 9. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “wherein said plurality of atoms comprises neutral atoms” (par 38: “… neutral atoms can serve as building blocks for large-scale quantum systems…”).
Claim 13. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “wherein one or both of said transferring in (b) or said reloading in (c) is performed using one or both of a moving optical trap or an optical tweezer” (par 2: “… a typical approach to create such arrays is to load atoms into reconfigurable optical tweezers from a magneto-optical trap (MOT) and then arrange the loaded tweezers into a target atom geometry…”).
Vala_2005 further makes obvious “wherein one or both of said transferring in (b) or said reloading in (c) is performed using one or both of a moving optical trap or an optical tweezer” (page 1: “… using optical tweezer…”; page 4: “… using an optical tweezer dipole trap…”).
Claim 14. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “wherein said first array is distinct from said second array” (FIG. 5A).
Claim 15. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “wherein said first array is physically separated from said second array” (FIG. 5A).
Claim 16. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “wherein said first array is generated with a first light source and wherein said reservoir is generated with a second light source” (par 63: “… a second laser beam… to avoid interference between the static dipole traps… the frequency of the laser beam 951 can be different from the frequency of the laser beam 910…”).
Claim 21. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “wherein both said first array and said second array are two-dimensional (FIG. 4), or three-dimensional” (FIG. 5A)
Vala_2005 further makes obvious “wherein both said first array and said second array are two-dimensional (page 1: “… analysis is simplest for a two-dimensional lattice…”) or three-dimensional”
Claim 23. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “wherein one or both of said first array or said second array are formed using either light or non-optical electromagnetic fields” (par 2: “… a typical approach to create such arrays is to load atoms into reconfigurable optical tweezers from a magneto-optical trap (MOT) and then arrange the loaded tweezers into a target atom geometry…”)
Claim 24. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “wherein said transferring in (b) comprises: (i) transferring a first number of atoms from said second array to one or more intermediate arrays, wherein said first number of atoms comprises at least a subset of said at least one first atom; and (ii) transferring a second number of atoms from said one or more intermediate arrays to said first array, wherein said second number of atoms comprises at most said first number of atoms” (The figures such as FIG. 5 illustrate a series of arrays which atoms must pass through if the atoms are being transferred along the Z axis; par 54: “to produce arbitrary arrangements”; par 55: “… sort the atoms into the desired configuration…”).
Claim 25. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “wherein: Said one or more intermediate arrays comprises at least two intermediate arrays; and at least said second number of atoms are transferred between said at least two intermediate arrays (i) after said first number of atoms are transferred to said at least two intermediate arrays from said second array and (ii) before said second number of atoms are transferred from said at least two intermediate arrays to said first array” (FIG. 5; par 54: “to produce arbitrary arrangements”; par 55: “… sort the atoms into the desired configuration…”).
Claim 26. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “further comprising: (g) rearranging, within said plurality of spatially distinct optical trapping sites, positions of at least some of one or both of (i) said plurality of atoms in said first array of (ii) said at least one first atom in said first array” (FIG. 2 – 5).
Claim 27. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “wherein said first array is associated with a first spatial light modulator and said second array is associated with a second spatial light modulator” (par 6: “… the optical system can comprise at least one spatial light modulator (SLM)… the at least one SLM to activate or deactivate the one or more switchable optical traps… the system can further include a second spatial light modulator (SLM) operable to produce a plurality of static optical traps…”).
Claim 28. Vala_2005 further makes obvious “wherein said atom source comprises one or more of a magneto-optical trap (MOT) (page 1: “… large number of neutral atoms can be arrayed in optical lattice or other atom traps… atoms trapped in optical lattices… background gas collisions…”), an atomic beam (page 1: “… a lattice of neutral atoms… trapped in perpendicular standing waves of linearly polarized laser beam…”), or a thermal atomic gas” (page 1: atoms trapped in optical lattices… background gas collisions…”).
Kim_2021 further makes obvious “wherein said atom source comprises one or more of a magneto-optical trap (MOT) (par 2: “… a typical approach to creating such arrays is to load atoms into reconfigurable optical tweezers from a magneto-optical trap (MOT) and then rearrange the loaded tweezers into a target atom geometry…”), an atomic beam (page 3: “… laser beams… tweezer beams…”) , or a thermal atomic gas” (par 4: “… atomic gas collisions…”).
Claim 29. Vala_2005 further makes obvious “wherein said transferring in (b) is at least in part in response to an atom loss occurring in said first array after said trapping in (a)” (abstract: “… correcting qubit loss error… the qubit loss is first detected… inserting a new atom in the vacated lattice site… detecting a general leakage error and thus allow qubit loss to be corrected…” page 1: “… background gas collisions can eject the atoms, causing the qubit to simply disappear from the system… reliable quantum computation in optical lattice will require correction of such qubit loss errors… the method could be applied to any neutral atom system, or in fact, to any quantum computing system that might experience qubit loss… once the error is identified, the vacated lattice site is filled with a new atom in the qubit ground state using an optical tweezer…” page4: “.. then replace the atom… Conditional Source. The conditional source can be implemented in an addressable optical lattice using an optical tweezer dipole trap to transport an atom in the qubit ground stat from the reservoir lattice…”).
Claim 30. Vala_2005 further makes obvious “wherein said reloading in (b) to increase said fill factor of said first array comprises returning said first array to said first fill factor” (abstract: “… correcting qubit loss error… the qubit loss is first detected… inserting a new atom in the vacated lattice site… detecting a general leakage error and thus allow qubit loss to be corrected…” page 1: “… background gas collisions can eject the atoms, causing the qubit to simply disappear from the system… reliable quantum computation in optical lattice will require correction of such qubit loss errors… the method could be applied to any neutral atom system, or in fact, to any quantum computing system that might experience qubit loss… once the error is identified, the vacated lattice site is filled with a new atom in the qubit ground state using an optical tweezer…” page4: “.. then replace the atom… Conditional Source. The conditional source can be implemented in an addressable optical lattice using an optical tweezer dipole trap to transport an atom in the qubit ground stat from the reservoir lattice…”).
Claim 3. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “further comprising: (d) Repeating said transferring in (b) a first number of times and repeating said reloading in (c) a second number of times to achieve a target fill factor in said first array” (FIG. 2, 3, 4, 5 illustrate that the transfer of atoms can be repeated. Par 52: “… the process can be repeated for K = 2, 3, 4,…”; par 54: “… and repeating the moving of each atom 1, decrementing K = K-1 each time…”; par 67: “… a…. load these atoms into about 1,000 blocks of 100 atoms in each array… and repeat the process from step (a)…”)
While Kim_2021 teaches enabling long-lived quantum memories (par 38) by filling neural atoms in a system of arrays and to repeatedly transfer atoms into arrays (FIG. 2, 3, 4, 5, par 54, par 67), Kim_2021 does not explicitly teach that the intended purpose of repeatedly transferring atoms into an array is “to achieve a target fill factor in said first array.”
Nevertheless, Vala_2005 further makes obvious “to achieve a target fill factor in said first array” (page 1: “… one the error is identified, the vacated lattice site is filled with a new atom in the qubit…” page 2: “error correction” section teaches a density matrix describing the pure state of the quantum computer… a new atom in the qubit ground state is inserted at the empty site…” NOTE: it would be obvious to achieve a fill factor in the first array by filling lattice sites with atoms where vacated lattice sites indicate error thereby achieving a fill factor that achieves the density matrix describing the corrected pure state of the quantum computer.).
Claim 17. Vala_2005 makes obvious “further comprising: (f) determining, subsequent to said trapping in (a), an atomic loss number representing a difference between (i) a first number of atoms in said plurality of atoms trapped in said first array and (ii) a second number of atoms in a remaining subset of said plurality of atoms trapped in said first array that remain in said first array following said performing in ( e )” ((page 2 – 3: the section on error correction teaches:
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Claim 18. Vala_2005 makes obvious “wherein said at least one first atom transferred in (b) comprises a number of atoms equal to at least said atomic loss number” (page 2 – 3: the section on error correction teaches to correct the loss error in the memory which makes it obvious to transfer a number of atoms equal to the lost number of atoms thereby correcting the error due to the lost atoms.).
Claim 19. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “wherein said atomic loss number is determined in (F) based at least in part on imaging across an imaging axis to determine which sites of said first plurality of spatially distinct optical trapping sites of said first array are occupied” (par 61: “… a sensor 930, such as an optical camera 930, images the 3-dimensional space 940 to find the traps that contain single atoms within the n-position array…”).
Claim 20. Kim_2021 further makes obvious “wherein: said first array is physically separated from said second array along an axis perpendicular to said imaging axis; and one or both of said transferring in (b) or said reloading in (c) is performed using one or both of a moving optical trap or an optical tweezer (FIG. 5, 9; par 2: “… tweezer from a magneto-optical trap (MOT) and then rearrange the loaded tweezers into a target atom geometry…”).
Claims 10, 11, 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vala_2005 in view of Kim_2021 in view of Endres_2016 in view of Kock_2016 (Laser controlled atom source for optical clocks, Scientific Reports 11/18/2016).
Claim 10. Kock_2016 makes obvious “wherein said plurality of atoms comprises a Group II element of a Group II like element” (abstract: “… atom source for a strontium optical lattice clock… strontium atomic vapors from bulk strontium oxide… millions of strontium atoms… captured in a magneto-optical trap (MOT)…” NOTE: a Group II elements is known to those of ordinary skill in the art as being elements with two valence electrons and are those elements listed on the periodic table in the second column from the left).
Kim_2021and Kock_2016 are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor called atoms in optical traps. Before the effective filing date it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine Kim_2021and Kock_2016. The rationale for doing so would have been that Kim_2021 teaches to store atoms in a magneto-optical trap in order to process information at the quantum level. Kock_2016 teaches to store strontium atoms in a magneto-optical trap when one what to have a quantum clock. Therefore; it would have been obvious to combine the MOT taught by Kim_2021 with strontium which is a Group II element for the benefit of having a quantum clock to obtain the invention as specified in the claims.
Claim 11. Kock_2016 makes obvious “wherein said plurality of atoms comprises an atom with two-valence electrons” (abstract: “… atom source for a strontium optical lattice clock… strontium atomic vapors from bulk strontium oxide… millions of strontium atoms… captured in a magneto-optical trap (MOT)…” NOTE: a Group II elements is known to those of ordinary skill in the art as being elements with two valence electrons and are those elements listed on the periodic table in the second column from the left).
Claim 12. Kock_2016 makes obvious “wherein said plurality of atoms comprises Strontium or Ytterbium” (abstract: “… atom source for a strontium optical lattice clock… strontium atomic vapors from bulk strontium oxide… millions of strontium atoms… captured in a magneto-optical trap (MOT)…” NOTE: a Group II elements is known to those of ordinary skill in the art as being elements with two valence electrons and are those elements listed on the periodic table in the second column from the left).
Claims 6, 8, 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vala_2005 in view of Kim_2021 in view of Endres_2016 in view of Lukin_2022 (WO 2022/132389 A2)
Claim 6. Lukin_2022 further makes obvious “wherein said operation comprises said non-classical computation and wherein said performing in (e) comprises (i) Applying electromagnetic energy to one or more atoms of said first subset of said plurality of atoms in said first array, thereby inducing said one or more atoms to adopt one or more superposition states of a first atomic state and at least a second atomic state that is different from said first atomic state; (ii) Quantum mechanically entangling at least one of said one or more atoms in said one or more superposition states with at least another atom of said first subset of said plurality of atoms in said first array; and (ii) measuring said one or more superposition states to obtain a non-classical result” (par 102: “… Rydberg state… the interaction energy can be employed for a number of important applications, such as quantum entanglement and quantum gates, by implementation of a Rydberg blockade mechanism…”; Par 123: “… forming a quantum superposition…”; Par 182: “the quantum state is a superposition… to measure this number the quantum state can be sampled…”; Par 147: “… snapshot… reflecting the quantum superposition of states…”; par 409: “… quantum entanglement that can potentially be exploited to realize robust quantum computation… to probe quantum spin… arrays of atoms… under Rydberg blockade… and protected quantum information processing…”; par 412: “… a quantum spin… can emerge… close to ¼ filling, and can be viewed as a coherent superposition…”; par 413: “… state corresponds to a coherent superposition…”; par 428: “… we prepare a superposition state…”; par 430: “… the system is in a superposition…”; par 462: “… Rydberg excitation. A wavefunction which is the superposition…”).
Vala_2005 and Lukin_2022 are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor called quantum trapping arrays. Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine Vala_2005 and Lunkin_2022. The rationale for doing so would have been that Vala_2005 teaches to transfer atoms from one optical trapping array (conditional source array) to another optical trapping array (computation lattice). Lukin_2022 teaches to use tweezers that allows the transfer of atoms from one tweezer array to a different tweezer array. Therefore; it would have been obvious to combine Vala_2005 and Lukin_2022 for the benefit of transferring atoms between different arrays for the benefit of moving atoms from a conditional source array to a computational array to obtain the invention as specified in the claims.
Kim_2021 and Lukin_2022 are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor called quantum trapping arrays. Before the effective filing date it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine Kim_2021 and Lukin_2022. The rationale for doing so would have been that Kim_2021 teaches to have 3-dimensional space with a plurality of different trapping arrays and teaches to transfer atoms to different locations in the 3-dimensional space. Lukin_2022 teaches to use tweezers that allows the transfer of atoms from one tweezer array to a different tweezer array thereby allowing the flexibility to not only move atoms within a single tweezer array (i.e., only in the X, Y) plane but between tweezer arrays (i.e., between planes in the Z direction) thereby providing additional flexibility to organizing qubits for quantum calculations. Therefore; it would have been obvious to combine Kim_2021 and Lukin_2022 for the benefit of manipulating atoms in all three dimensions of the 3-dimensional space to obtain the invention as specified in the claims.
Claim 8. Lukin_2022 further makes obvious “wherein both of (i) said one or more atoms of said first subset of said plurality of atoms in said one or more superposition states and (ii) said at least another atom of said plurality of atoms in said array are in a superposition state with a coherence that is maintained during said reloading in (c)” (par 101: “… optical tweezers… neutral atoms offer a remarkable way to switch on strong interactions through the coherent excitation of the atoms into Rydberg states…”; Par 107: “… the coherent evolution of two atoms under laser excitation from a ground state… to a Rydberg state… is described by the Hamiltonian…”; Par 382: “… adiabatic sweeps can be carried out with minimal decoherence…”)
Claim 22. Lukin_2022 makes obvious “wherein said first array has different number of dimensions than said second array” (par 85: “… rearrangement of the atoms to form desired defect-free arrays with arbitrary geometries may be provided…”).
Vala_2005 and Lukin_2022 are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor called quantum trapping arrays. Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine Vala_2005 and Lunkin_2022. The rationale for doing so would have been that Vala_2005 teaches to transfer atoms from one optical trapping array (conditional source array) to another optical trapping array (computation lattice). Lukin_2022 teaches to use tweezers that allows the transfer of atoms from one tweezer array to a different tweezer array. Therefore; it would have been obvious to combine Vala_2005 and Lukin_2022 for the benefit of transferring atoms between different arrays for the benefit of moving atoms from a conditional source array to a computational array to obtain the invention as specified in the claims.
Kim_2021 and Lukin_2022 are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor called quantum trapping arrays. Before the effective filing date it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine Kim_2021 and Lukin_2022. The rationale for doing so would have been that Kim_2021 teaches to have 3-dimensional space with a plurality of different trapping arrays and teaches to transfer atoms to different locations in the 3-dimensional space. Lukin_2022 teaches to use tweezers that allows the transfer of atoms from one tweezer array to a different tweezer array thereby allowing the flexibility to not only move atoms within a single tweezer array (i.e., only in the X, Y) plane but between tweezer arrays (i.e., between planes in the Z direction) thereby providing additional flexibility to organizing qubits for quantum calculations. Therefore; it would have been obvious to combine Kim_2021 and Lukin_2022 for the benefit of manipulating atoms in all three dimensions of the 3-dimensional space to obtain the invention as specified in the claims.
Claims 31, 32, 33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Vala_2005 in view of Kim_2021 in view of Endres_2016 in view of Singh_2022 (Mid-circuit correction of correlated phase errors using an array of spectator qubits, arXiv:2208.11716v2 [quant-ph] 29 Aug 2022) in view of Hansen_2008 (Measurement of the 3s3p 3P1 lifetime in magnesium using a magneto-optical trap, Physical Review A 77, 062502 (2008)).
Claim 31. Singh_2022 makes obvious “wherein a lifetime of a plurality of atoms in said atom source is than a lifetime of said plurality of atoms in said first array” by teaching about the operational timescales required of the MOT process when used to reload a spectator array for the high-coherence "data region":
Pulsed MOT Timescale: The paper states that the spectator array is reloaded from a pulsed MOT on a timescale of 150(50) ms (p. 5). This is defined as the time needed to reach 1-1/e of the asymptotic loading fraction (p. 5).
Comparison to Data Region Coherence: This 150 ms timescale is shorter than the coherence time of the data qubits in the science region, which is measured to be 𝑇XY42=0.42(3) s (or 420 ms) when the MOT pulse is used (p. 5).
Comparison to Spectator Array Coherence: The coherence lifetime of the spectator array itself (when measured using an XY4 decoupling sequence in the tweezer environment) is 136(7) ms (p. 3) which is shorter than the MOT timescale.
Therefore, the pulsed MOT timescale is larger than the coherence lifetime of the spectator array. While this may imply that the MOT lifetime is greater than the lifetime of atoms in the spectator array, this provides no explicitly information as to the actual lifetime of a plurality of atoms in the MOT.
Nevertheless, Hansen_2008 teaches “in many spectroscopic experiments… the workhorse of today is atom traps such as the magneto-optical trap (MOT)… in these traps large number of atoms or molecules (109 – 1012) can be stored with lifetimes exceeding 300 s at submilli-K temperatures…” (page 062502-1 Introduction paragraph 1) and “… the MOT lifetime 4s…” and “… load period of about 10 ms the signal is slowly decays due to the 4 – 5 s MOT lifetime…” (page 062502-2).
Accordingly, in combination, Singh_2022 and Hansen_2008 make obvious “wherein a lifetime of a plurality of atoms in said atom source is greater than a lifetime of said plurality of atoms in said first array” because Singh_2022 teaches to reload an array from a MOT and teach a spectator array with a lifetime of 136(7) ms and another array with a lifetime of 420 ms and Hansen_2008 teaches that, as the “workhorse of today” the “magneto-optical trap (MOT)” can store a large number of atoms “with lifetimes exceeding 300 s”. Hansen_2008 further illustrates a specific example of a MOT with an expected lifetime of 4 – 5 seconds. Therefore, Hansen_2008 makes clear that magneto-optical traps, as the “workhorse of today” are known to those of ordinary skill in the art to have a lifetime that is greater than, for example, the 136(7) ms (the spectator array) and 420 ms (the data array). Further, as the “workhorse of today” the behavior of a MOT is predictable. Also, as the “workhorse of today” one of ordinary skill in the art could have substituted the MOT with undisclosed lifetime taught by Sigh_2022 with a MOT of Sigh_2022 that has disclosed lifetime exceeding 300 S, or even the MOT with lifetime of 4 – 5 seconds and the result would have been a MOT from which an array is reloaded that has a lifetime greater than the lifetime of 136(7) ms for the spectator array and greater than the 420 ms for the data array. Therefore, due to the findings outlined above, the Office finds that it would have been obvious to simply substitute a MOT with a lifetime of 300 s for a reservoir MOT such as the one disclosed by Signh_2022.
Kim_2021 and Endres_2016 and Singh_2022 are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor called quantum traps/arrays. Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine Kim_2021 and Endres_2016 and Singh_2022.
The rationale for doing so would have been that the combination of Kim_2021 and Endres_2016 teaches to “replenish lost atoms from the reservoir” (Endres_2016 page 2) and that “with periodic reservoir reloading from a cloud atom source (such as a MOT), could be used to maintain arrays indefinitely” (Endres_2016 page 3). Singh_2022 teaches to reload an array from a MOT and demonstrates to define the reloading timescale as the time taken to reach 1-1/e of the asymptotic loading fraction with a MOT that saturates at a loading fraction of 0.49 which indicates a capacity to handle continuous operation because the system can replace almost half of all the qubits in the array with an aim towards minimizing the reloading time. The design ensures that the MOT can be loaded in parallel with the quantum operations, with a sufficiently long lifetime to provide a steady stream of new atoms whenever a refill operation is triggered, which typically happens much faster. Ultimately, the ability to perform computations that last longer than the lifetime of any single atom in the system relies on this efficient and much longer-lived replenishment system. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Kim_2021 and Endres_2016 and Singh_2022 to ensure high loading fraction with a fast refill operation from a long lived replenishment system for the benefit of continuous operation to obtain the invention as specified in the claims.
Claim 32. Hansen_2008makes obvious “wherein said lifetime of said plurality of atoms in said atom source is an expected lifetime of said plurality of atoms in said atoms source” by teaching to expect that a MOT lifetime is expected to be between 4 – 5 seconds). Singh_2022 makes obvious “and wherein said lifetime of said plurality of atoms in said first array is an expected lifetime of said plurality of atoms in said first array” by teaching 𝑇XY42=0.42(3) s (or 420 ms) for the data region and 136(7) ms for the spectator region because this indicates the expected amount of lifetime for the atoms in those regions. NOTE: the specification doesn’t provide any definition of what “expected” means and therefore it is interpreted according to the common meaning: likely, anticipated.
Claim 33. Signh_2022 makes obvious “further comprising: (f) reloading at least one third atom into said atom source, wherein at least some of said plurality of atoms is maintained in said first array during said reloading in (f)” (FIG. 4 loading fraction = 0.49).
Kim_2021 and Endres_2016 and Singh_2022 are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor called quantum traps/arrays. Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine Kim_2021 and Endres_2016 and Singh_2022.
The rationale for doing so would have been that the combination of Kim_2021 and Endres_2016 teaches to “replenish lost atoms from the reservoir” (Endres_2016 page 2) and that “with periodic reservoir reloading from a cloud atom source (such as a MOT), could be used to maintain arrays indefinitely” (Endres_2016 page 3). Singh_2022 teaches to reload an array from a MOT and demonstrates to define the reloading timescale as the time taken to reach 1-1/e of the asymptotic loading fraction with a MOT that saturates at a loading fraction of 0.49 which indicates a capacity to handle continuous operation because the system can replace almost half of all the qubits in the array with an aim towards minimizing the reloading time. The design ensures that the MOT can be loaded in parallel with the quantum operations, with a sufficiently long lifetime to provide a steady stream of new atoms whenever a refill operation is triggered, which typically happens much faster. Ultimately, the ability to perform computations that last longer than the lifetime of any single atom in the system relies on this efficient and much longer-lived replenishment system. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Kim_2021 and Endres_2016 and Singh_2022 to ensure high loading fraction with a fast refill operation from a long lived replenishment system for the benefit of continuous operation to obtain the invention as specified in the claims.
Conclusion
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