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Category: computing – Page 42

A 200-year-old physics experiment could help build future computers

Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) have found a much simpler way to produce unusual light structures known as optical skyrmions by reviving a classic optics experiment that dates back more than 200 years.

Optical skyrmions are tiny, stable swirling patterns formed within the properties of light. Their structure has often been compared to the spines of a hedgehog. Because they can potentially encode and store information, researchers see them as promising building blocks for future data storage, communications, and computing technologies.

Instead of relying on expensive, highly engineered metamaterials that have traditionally been needed to generate optical skyrmions, the NTU team created them by shining a laser at a small circular disc. The approach provides a far simpler way to produce, study, and control these complex light structures.

World’s first superconducting quantum heat engine offers path to larger quantum computers

Recent improvements in our understanding of how the principles of thermodynamics apply in the quantum realm could give a boost to quantum technology, and a clearer picture of quantum thermodynamics could in turn enhance our understanding of classical thermodynamics. Now, Aalto University researchers have demonstrated the first cyclic quantum heat engine inside a superconducting circuit.

Physicists have become increasingly fascinated with the idea that classical thermodynamics could be combined with quantum mechanics. Quantum mechanics captures the behavior of particles on tiny scales—smaller than atoms—while thermodynamics is about large systems, from molecules up to the entire universe. How do strange quantum phenomena like tunneling, entanglement and superposition mix with the stolid familiarity of the heat engines that kick-started the Industrial Revolution?

Heat engines, like James Watt’s famous steam engine, convert heat into useful energy, or work. They power our cars, ships and planes, and heat engines are how most power plants generate electricity. Now, the world’s first superconducting quantum heat engine has been built: a tiny device consisting of a transmon qubit, a resonator and a quantum refrigerator.

New 3D thermal cloak hides objects from heat in any direction

Researchers have designed and built the first 3D device that can make objects invisible to heat, an advance that could transform how we protect sensitive electronics, manage heat in microchips and shield equipment from thermal detection.

The new thermal cloak can hide objects of almost any shape from infrared cameras while also protecting them from extreme temperatures. Unlike previous designs, which worked only in two dimensions or from a single direction, the cloak works from essentially any direction. Rather than simply blocking heat, thermal cloaking guides heat around an object so that, to an infrared camera, it appears as if nothing is there.

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign civil and environmental engineering professor Shelly Zhang, postdoctoral researcher Weichen Li and graduate student Yibo Wang collaborated with professor Ole Sigmund at the Technical University of Denmark on the study, which was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Entanglement Goes Steady

Two independent groups have demonstrated ways to entangle quantum bits without the need for precisely timed control pulses.

Quantum entanglement describes a link, or correlation, between the states of two or more quantum particles. For example, given a pair of entangled qubits—particles that can be in either a ground state or an excited state—measuring the state of one qubit can inform us about the state of the other. Entanglement is puzzling because it has no analogue in the classical world, where our physical intuition can be relied upon. In particular, entanglement appears to violate the principle of locality: The qubits’ states remain correlated even if we move them far apart before measuring them. But entanglement is more than a curiosity: It is also critical to quantum computing, where it serves as a resource for performing quantum algorithms and remote operations between distant qubits.

Battery-like device pulls CO₂ from air using electricity and saltwater chemistry

Engineers have developed a new way to pull carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere using a process similar to charging and discharging a battery—an advance that could help address the planet’s excess CO2 problem.

A new collaborative study between scientists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Toyota focuses on direct air capture, a technology designed to reduce new emissions and remove CO2 that has already accumulated in the atmosphere. Instead of using heat to absorb and release CO2, as many carbon capture methods do, the new method uses electricity and water-based chemistry within an electrochemical device.

The results of the study by mechanical engineering and science professor Kyle Smith, Illinois graduate students Paul Rozzi and JeongA Lee, and Chip Roberts and Tim Arthur from the Toyota Research Institute of North America are published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

New method brings single-particle quality control to nanocrystal manufacturing

Nanocrystals are already used in millions of devices, including televisions, laptops and displays, and are considered key materials for the next generation of quantum, sensing and solar technologies. However, they have not yet fully realized their potential. One major reason is their inherent heterogeneity: A single solution contains billions of nanocrystals whose properties can differ substantially. Although these particles can be characterized, important quality parameters are typically accessible only as average values across the entire sample.

“For their function in devices, these average values are insufficient,” says Professor Emiliano Cortés, who conducts research at LMU’s Nano-Institute. “Each individual nanoparticle can behave differently—for example, in its size or in how efficiently it emits light, meaning how effectively it converts absorbed energy back into light.”

Inside NTT’s Photonics Breakthroughs: A Roadmap to Light-Based Computing

This week we’re talking about photonics. My guests are Tim McKenna and Ryo Yanagimoto from the Physics and Informatics Laboratories at NTT.

Tim and I chat about balancing theoretical physics with real-world applications at NTT, his most exciting photonics projects, and the primary obstacles to replacing traditional electronics with photonics technologies.

Ryo and I dig into the game-changing potential of NTT’s programmable photonics chips. We discuss how their unique reconfigurability is shaking up traditional hardware manufacturing, facilitating a move from power-hungry electrical processing toward light-driven computation, even allowing chips to self-correct for environmental shifts.

Researchers find simple solution for extending the lifespan of LEDs made from glowing quantum dots

A new study led by MIT researchers could drive the development of more energy-efficient digital displays—such as flat-screen TVs, augmented and virtual reality headsets, smartphone screens, medical imaging devices and even large-area ambient lighting surfaces—that also generate richer, brighter colors.

The MIT scientists, in collaboration with researchers at Samsung, studied the microscopic changes that occur inside LEDs that use electrically excited quantum dots, which are precisely shaped nanoscale semiconductor particles that emit extremely pure colored light. The research appears in Science Advances.

Quantum dots are currently used in some of the computer and television displays with the best picture quality available. The efficiency of these displays could be further improved, and their manufacturing process further simplified, if the quantum dots could be electrically excited, as was first demonstrated in the quantum dot LED (QD-LED) structures more than 20 years ago.

Harvard scientists turn a silicon chip into a DNA writing machine

Scientists have created a silicon chip that can write dozens of DNA sequences simultaneously using electricity and water-based enzymes, offering a cleaner alternative to conventional DNA manufacturing. The breakthrough could eventually support portable DNA-writing devices and even massive DNA data storage, although new chemistry will be needed to scale the technology further.