Experimental implementation of precisely tailored light-matter interaction via inverse engineering

Accurate and efficient quantum control in the presence of constraints and decoherence is a requirement and a challenge in quantum information processing. Shortcuts to adiabaticity, originally proposed to speed up the slow adiabatic process, have nowadays become versatile toolboxes for preparing states or controlling the quantum dynamics. Unique shortcut designs are required for each quantum system with intrinsic physical constraints, imperfections, and noise. Here, we implement fast and robust control for the state preparation and state engineering in a rare-earth ions system. Specifically, the interacting pulses are inversely engineered and further optimized with respect to inhomogeneities of the ensemble and the unwanted interaction with other qubits. We demonstrate that our protocols surpass the conventional adiabatic schemes, by reducing the decoherence from the excited-state decay and inhomogeneous broadening. The results presented here are applicable to other noisy intermediate-scale quantum systems.