Aroosa Ijaz

Aroosa Ijaz

Ph.D. student, Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Waterloo. Graduate researcher at Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence , Toronto

Talks, posters and presentations

Machine learning with Quantum software

June 01, 2023

Lecture, European Summer School on Quantum AI, Udine, Italy

In this introductory tutorial, we will explore how various quantum softwares are set up and how to code quantum machine learning models in them. More specifically, we will look at Pennylane and Tensorflow quantum in detail. For both softwares, we will explore their underlying structure, how data is embedded into quantum states, how variational quantum models are setup, how optimization and gradient routines are carried out and how machine learning problems can be expressed using quantum learning models.

Quantum Artificial Intelligence

June 28, 2022

Talk, Research To Reality symposium, Toronto, Canada

At this symposium hosted by Technion Canada, I talked about the promises and current state of Quantum artificial intelligence. I introduced the history and development of quantum mechanics and the birth of quantum computing. The current state of NISQ devices and recently reported quantum advantage results were discussed. Then, I gave an overview of how machine learning and quantum computing can support and work with each other and gave various algortihmic examples.

Quantum machine learning

March 12, 2022

Talk, International Women’s Day Conference, Virtual

This talk was part of the 2-day International Women’s Day Conference organized by Pakistani Women in Computing (PWiC) and Google’s Women Techmakers program. My talk motivated the exciting merge of Quantum computing and machine learning. I also presented surveys that show how women make less than 20% of the people in computing, engineering, and physics. Physics had the lowest number of women at all levels of education and employment. When it comes to identifying challenges, barriers, and success, interesting social differences can be identified across the two genders. See the talk here

The Quantum future

December 20, 2021

Talk, Physics Camp For Girls 2021, Virtual

This talk was part of a Physics camp aimed at inspiring high school girls from all over Pakistan about physics and STEM careers. In Pakistan, science education teaches only classical physics upto high school and quantum mechanics is introduced much later at university level education. Lack of industry infrastructure and funding for this field means that a very small number of people choose to study physics at advanced levels and even fewer people choose it as a career. Hence, there is potentially a huge lack of knowledge and interest in the general society regarding physics and how it is changing the world. My talk was to motivate young girls about quantum computing and its wonderfully exciting applications and their potential impact on technology and the society we live in. See the talk given in urdu here

Quantum Learning Theory

September 18, 2021

Talk, Washington Quantum Computing meetup, Webinar

In this accessible talk, I give an overview and current status of the field of Quantum learning theory. It helps us understand how QML models learn from data. It also includes a comprehensive introduction to classical computational learning theory. This should be understandable by all levels of quantum enthusiasts and can be used with my notes. The video is available here.

Quantum Embeddings

March 15, 2021

Talk, Portland Quantum Computing meetup, Webinar

Linear algebraic methods for machine learning, such as kernel methods, operate by embedding data points as vectors in a high dimensional vector space, and by applying methods of linear algebra to classify and to discriminate between embedded clusters of data. Quantum mechanics represents a natural setting for enacting such linear algebraic machine learning methods. When data points are embedded as quantum states, we naturally end up using vectors that live in high-dimensional vector spaces. In this session, we will talk about the power of quantum embeddings for machine learning and how the way we encode data might carry a lot of weight in the performance of quantum learning models. As an example, we will see that the performance of quantum classifiers can be completely determined by the quantum feature map that performs the embedding. Its recording is available here.

The Quantum future

February 06, 2021

Talk, Q-munity Vision Conference 2021, Virtual

This talk is about the impact of quantum computing on technology and AI and how young students can get involved into this field.See talk here

Quantum embeddings for machine learning

November 09, 2020

Talk, Quantum Techniques in Machine Learning (QTML) 2020, Massachusetts, USA

This talk is about the power of quantum embeddings for machine learning. We identify the optimal measurements to discriminate between clusters of data, and we show how to perform those measurements on existing quantum computers. We show that the performance of such quantum classifiers is completely determined by the quantum feature map that performs the embedding: we use adaptive learning techniques to find optimal quantum feature maps.See talk here

An introduction to Quantum Machine Learning

April 27, 2020

Talk, Washington Quantum Computing meetup, Webinar

This introductory scientific talk on Quantum Machine Learning was delivered as a webinar for the Washington Quantum Computing meetup on 27-04-2020. It looks at the principles of quantum mechanics that can be used to do machine learning and lists the various current directions of research in this field. There is also an introduction to the software PennyLane with examples. Some basic knowledge of linear algebra and quantum mechanics should suffice. Its recording is available here.

New frontiers in Quantum Computing: Quantum Machine Learning

January 19, 2020

Keynote speech, Canadian Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics, Toronto, Canada

This was a wonderful opportunity for me to inspire brilliant young women about quantum computing! I gave an introductory talk on QML, discussed the gender bias in Physics and encouraged young students to take the lead. I also acted as a panel judge and attended presentations and poster sessions where students showcased their research. Had a great experience talking to everyone about physics, our motivations, and challenges! For deatils see, ccuwip website.

Towards realization of Majorana Fermions in WSe2

January 23, 2018

Talk, Mid-term review meeting SpinNano network, Sheffield, UK

Monolayer TMDCs have recently appeared as fascinating non-centrosymmetric systems to explore quantum physics. Additionally, a direct band gap, Ising spin-orbit coupling and the corresponding spin-valley locking can proof promising research grounds for topological superconductivity. In this project, we look into the effects of proxmitizing hole-doped TMDCs (mainly WSe2) with an s-wave superconductor and the corresponding transport of cooper pairs via the inter-valley paired state with a chern number 2. For this purpose, we make hetrostructures using two flakes of 10-50nm thick exfoliated NbSe2 to proximitize and measure transport across a S-I-S junction. Below-superconducting-gap features arising from Andreev Reflections were observed as first signatures of induced superconductivity. This work is in progress towards detecting Majorana Fermions at the 2D semiconductor-superconductor interfaces.

Realization ofan atomically thin mirror using monolayer MoSe2

June 14, 2017

Talk, NCCR QSIT Junior meeting, Passugg, Switzerland

We were able to show upto 90% extinction of an incident field that is resonant with the exciton transition in a single monolayer of MoSe2. The corresponding reflection coefficient was found to be 45% which is only limited by the decay rates and sample quality. Additionally, this monolayer is embedded in a charge controlled heterostructure that can be used to realize an electrically tunable atomically-thin mirror. This paves way to applications such as fast programmable spatial light modulators, chiral mirrors, suspended ultra-light mirrors for optomechanical devices and many more.

Towards efficient readout of electron spin state in Silicon Vacancy centers in diamond

March 02, 2016

Poster, DPG spring meeting, Hannover, Germany

Efficient qubit systems are being actively researched globally. A qubit needs to have an efficient photon interface, long coherence times, stability and easy control. Some active systems of research include trapped ions, quantum dots and color centers in solids. Currently, the most prominent color center for quantum information is Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) center in diamond. The stiff lattice of diamond protects the coherent properties of the center’s spin. The spin-photon interface for NV centers is, however, poor. Silicon Vacancy (SiV) center has recently emerged as a competitor to the NV center due to its uniquely attractive optical properties. Compared to NV centers, it provides a feasible interface between stationary and flying qubits. This center has also been shown to emit indistinguishable photons which will pave the way towards scalable quantum networks. We use the extinction of light by single defects in bulk diamond to obtain high contrast resonant detection as compared to the usual off-resonant measurements over the phonon side band. This technique improves electron spin state readout when the defect is addressed resonantly and allows for single-shot optical readout of electron spin.

Silicon vacancy centers in diamond

September 24, 2015

Poster, Vienna Summer School on Complex Quantum Systems, Vienna, Austria

Efficient candidates for the fundamental component of quantum networks – qubits, are being actively researched globally. The qubit needs to exercise an efficient photon interface, ability to entangle with photons, long coherence times, stability and easy handling and control. Some active systems of research include ions trapped by electro-magnetic fields, quantum dots and color centers in diamond. The most prominent color center currently is the nitrogen vacancy center which exists in the large band gap of diamond. The stiff lattice of diamond protects the coherent properties of the color center’s spin. The spin-photon interface for NV centers is, however, poor. Silicon vacancy center has recently emerged as a furious competitor to the NV center. Compared to NV centers, its optical properties provide a feasible interface between stationary and flying qubits. This center has also been proved to emit indistinguishable photons which pave the way towards scalable quantum networks.

Optical extinction measurements on SiV centers in diamond

March 25, 2015

Talk, DPG spring meeting, Heidelberg, Germany

Silicon vacancy (SiV) centers in diamond are currently gaining scientific interest predominantly due to their uniquely attractive optical spectrum. The narrow zero-phonon line contains 70% of the emission, and exhibits excellent spectral stability. Beyond applications as single photon sources and resources for quantum information processing and communication, these properties are ideal for examining fundamental interactions between light and single quantum emitters. We perform optical extinction measurements on single SiV centers in bulk diamond. This involves detecting interference between the reflection of the incident resonant laser form the diamond surface and the coherent fluorescence of the SiV center. Such investigations can provide a clear idea about the overlaps of orbital wavefunctions by looking into the absorption, scattering and extinction cross-sections of SiV centers in diamond. This technique may also provide a high contrast detection of SiV centers and hence pave the way towards single-shot optical readout of electron spin.