David Allcock

David Allcock is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Oregon, part of the College of Arts and Sciences. His research focuses on ion trapping, quantum computing, and hybrid quantum systems, with an emphasis on manipulating atomic and molecular systems using electric and magnetic fields for quantum information applications. He leads the Ion Trapping Lab at UO, where he develops scalable quantum technologies and open-source control systems like ARTIQ and Sinara. His work bridges experimental physics with engineering, addressing challenges in qubit control, error mitigation, and large-scale quantum computer design.

Education: MPhys from the University of Oxford (2007), D.Phil. in Physics from Oxford (2012). Prior to UO, he was a Lindemann Fellow at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Boulder, CO. His research includes innovations in trapped-ion qubit control, including laser-free entangling gates, scalable architectures, and applications in quantum sensing and dark matter detection.

Key research themes include metastable qubit systems, photon scattering error mitigation, and the integration of superconducting detectors for state readout. He collaborates on open-source hardware-software stacks for quantum experiments and mentors students in quantum engineering through programs like the Quantum Technology Master’s Internship. Current projects explore hybrid quantum-classical interfaces and ultra-stable ion trap fabrication.

His lab’s contributions span theoretical and experimental domains, with recent advances in geometric phase gates, microwave-driven control, and error-resilient qubit operations. The group also engages in interdisciplinary work linking quantum computing with precision measurement, such as SPUD (SPectroscopy for Ultralight Dark matter) and bosonic sensing tools.