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Category: computing – Page 146

In support of a major collaborative project to store massive amounts of data in DNA molecules, a Los Alamos National Laboratory–led team has developed a key enabling technology that translates digital binary files into the four-letter genetic alphabet needed for molecular storage.

“Our software, the Adaptive DNA Storage Codec (ADS Codex), translates data files from what a computer understands into what biology understands,” said Latchesar Ionkov, a computer scientist at Los Alamos and principal investigator on the project. “It’s like translating from English to Chinese, only harder.”

DNA offers a compact way to store huge amounts of data cost-effectively. Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed ADS Codex to translate the 0s and 1s of digital computer files into the four-letter code of DNA.

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An international team of researchers from Queen Mary University of London, the University of Oxford, Lancaster University, and the University of Waterloo have developed a new single-molecule transistor that uses quantum interference to control the flow of electrons. The transistor, which is described in a paper published in the Nature Nanotechnology (“Quantum interference enhances the performance of single-molecule transistors”), opens new possibilities for using quantum effects in electronic devices.

Transistor are the basic building blocks of modern electronics. They are used to amplify and switch electrical signals, and they are essential for everything from smartphones to spaceships. However, the traditional method of making transistors, which involves etching silicon into tiny channels, is reaching its limits.

As transistors get smaller, they become increasingly inefficient and susceptible to errors, as electrons can leak through the device even when it is supposed to be switched off, by a process known as quantum tunnelling. Researchers are exploring new types of switching mechanisms that can be used with different materials to remove this effect.

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A NIMS research team has developed the world’s first n-channel diamond MOSFET (metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor). The developed n-channel diamond MOSFET provides a key step toward CMOS (complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor: one of the most popular technologies in the computer chip) integrated circuits for harsh-environment-applications as well as the development of diamond power electronics.

This research was published in Advanced Science (“High-temperature and high-electron mobility metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistors based on n-type diamond”).

World’s First N-Channel Diamond Field-Effect Transistor: (Left) Atomic force microscope image of diamond epilayer surface morphology. (Middle) Optical microscope image of the diamond MOSFET. (Right) Performance of the MOSFET measured at 300 °C. The drain current increased when the gate voltage (Vg) was increased from −20 V (indicated by a black line) to 10 V (indicated by a yellow line). (Image: NIMS)

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Welcome back to Coding with Qiskit! Join research scientist Dr. Derek Wang as he walks you through the exciting capabilities of Qiskit 1 for utility scale quantum computing.

He’ll show you how to install Qiskit version 1 from scratch and how to run quantum circuits–both unitary and dynamic, all based on some of the latest research papers by IBM Quantum–on devices with over 100 qubits using the latest error suppression and mitigation techniques. He’ll also be learning how to contribute to the Qiskit ecosystem with the help of open-source extraordinaire Abby Mitchell.

Remember to subscribe to get notified when the first episode is out!

Read more about Qiskit 1 here: https://www.ibm.com/quantum/blog/qisk…

Continue reading “Coding with Qiskit 1.x Series Announcement” | >

So what happens if you combine reading glasses with sunglasses and put a chip in that so discretely that nobody can even tell?

That’s what Deep Optics has done with its latest 32°N-branded Muir sunglasses that I’ve been testing for the last few weeks. A swipe on the frame sends an electrical signal to the two liquid crystal lenses to change the state of millions of tiny pixels so that close objects come into focus.

As such, these 32 Degrees North specs eliminate the need to carry (and lose) both reading glasses and sunglasses — at least, that’s the promise made in exchange for $849 of your hard-earned money.

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Year 2010 😗😁

The world has waited with bated breath for three decades, and now finally a group of academics, engineers, and math geeks has discovered the number that explains life, the universe, and everything. That number is 20, and it’s the maximum number of moves it takes to solve a Rubik’s Cube.

Known as God’s Number, the magic number required about 35 CPU-years and a good deal of man-hours to solve. Why? Because there’s-1 possible positions of the cube, and the computer algorithm that finally cracked God’s Algorithm had to solve them all. (The terms God’s Number/Algorithm are derived from the fact that if God was solving a Cube, he/she/it would do it in the most efficient way possible. The Creator did not endorse this study, and could not be reached for comment.)

A full breakdown of the history of God’s Number as well as a full breakdown of the math is available here, but summarily the team broke the possible positions down into sets, then drastically cut the number of possible positions they had to solve for through symmetry (if you scramble a Cube randomly and then turn it upside down, you haven’t changed the solution).

Continue reading “God’s Number Revealed: 20 Moves Proven Enough to Solve Any Rubik’s Cube Position” | >

Research often unfolds as a multistage process. The solution to one question can spark several more, inspiring scientists to reach further and look at the larger problem from several different perspectives. Such projects can often be the catalyst for collaborations that leverage the expertise and capabilities of different teams and institutions as they grow.

For half a century, scientists have delved into the mysteries of 1T phase tantalum disulfide (1T-TaS2), an inorganic layered material with some intriguing quantum properties, like superconductivity and charge density waves (CDW). To unlock the complex structure and behavior of this material, researchers from the Jozef Stefan Institute in Slovenia and Université Paris-Saclay in France reached out to experts utilizing the Pair Distribution Function (PDF) beamline at the National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility located at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, to learn more about the material’s structure. While the team in Slovenia had been studying these kinds of materials for decades, they were lacking the specific structural characterization that PDF could provide.

The results of this collaboration, recently published in Nature Communications, revealed a hidden electronic state that could only be seen by a local structure probe like the pair distribution function technique. With a more complete understanding of 1T-TaS2’s electronic states, this material may one day play a role in data storage, quantum computing, and superconductivity.

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In the race to develop powerful quantum computers, one of the biggest roadblocks has been their extreme sensitivity to errors introduced by environmental noise. Even the smallest disturbance can corrupt the delicate quantum states that form the basis of quantum computation.

Now the AWS Center for Quantum Computing team says they may have discovered a promising solution to this hurdle. The researchers report in a blog post that they have designed and demonstrated a new type of quantum bit, or qubit, that converts the majority of errors into a special class known as “erasure errors” – and these errors can be detected and fixed much more efficiently than standard quantum errors.

The team writes: “Quantum error correction is a powerful tool for combating the effects of noise. As with error correction in classical systems, quantum error correction can exponentially suppress the rate of errors by encoding information redundantly. Redundancy protects against noise, but it comes at a price: an increase in the number of physical quantum bits (qubits) used for computation, and an increase in the complexity and duration of computations.”

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