Credit: (Graphic based on figure 1 from publication. Background is a photo of a razor blade ion trap, taken by S. Debnath. Graphic rendering E. Edwards/JQI)
Ion qubits (shown as a crystal within trap blades) are combined in a modular design. Any set of ion modules (small cubes on left) can be connected using photonic interconnects. A switch, depicted as large cube on right, contains microelectromechanical mirrors to change connections between any arbitrary pair of modules.