Electron juggling: Approaching the atomic physics limit of the attempt rate in trapped ion photonic interconnects

Photonic interconnects are a key technology for scaling up atomic based quantum computers. By facilitating the connection of multiple systems, high-performance modular quantum processing units may be constructed to perform deeper and more useful algorithms. Most previous implementations of photonic interconnects in trapped ions utilize the scheme of preparing a state, exciting it, and collecting single photons from decays of the excited state. State preparation is responsible for the vast majority of the total attempt time, often taking hundreds of nanoseconds to several microseconds. Here, we describe and analyze a novel technique called "electron juggling" to speed up photonic interconnects by reducing the state preparation step substantially. Using a theoretical framework, we illustrate how this scheme can significantly increase remote entanglement generation rates, approaching the atomic physics limit of the attempt rate in trapped-ion photonic interconnects. Our results indicate that this scheme holds the possibility of achieving remote entanglement generation rates of over 1,000 Bell pairs per second.