Randomized benchmarking of single- and multi-qubit control in liquid-state NMR quantum information processing

Being able to quantify the level of coherent control in a proposed device implementing a quantum information processor (QIP) is an important task for both comparing different devices and assessing a device's prospects with regards to achieving fault-tolerant quantum control. We implement in a liquid-state nuclear magnetic resonance QIP the randomized benchmarking protocol presented by Knill et al (2008 Phys. Rev. A 77 012307). We report an error per randomized pi/2 pulse of 1.3 +/- 0.1 x 10(-4) with a single-qubit QIP and show an experimentally relevant error model where the randomized benchmarking gives a signature fidelity decay which is not possible to interpret as a single error per gate. We explore and experimentally investigate multi-qubit extensions of this protocol and report an average error rate for one- and two-qubit gates of 4.7 +/- 0.3 x 10(-3) for a three-qubit QIP. We estimate that these error rates are still not decoherence limited and thus can be improved with modifications to the control hardware and software.