Researchers have developed a revolutionary method to produce entangled photon pairs using much thinner materials, drastically reducing the size of quantum computing components.
This breakthrough enables simpler, more compact setups for quantum technologies, potentially transforming fields from climate science to pharmaceuticals.
Breakthrough in Quantum Computing.
The classic strategy of continually shrinking transistors in silicon chips to create faster, more powerful computers is starting to fail us.
“Even though silicon works at these extremely small dimensions, the energy efficiency required to do one calculation has been going up, and this makes it highly unsustainable,” Deep Jariwala, an engineering professor at the University of Pennsylvania, told the Wall Street Journal in 2022. “Energy-wise it doesn’t make sense anymore.”
We need to solve this sustainability issue if we want to continue improving our tech without causing further damage to the environment, and the hunt for solutions has some researchers taking a closer look at chips made from semiconducting materials other than silicon, including gallium nitride, a compound made of gallium and nitrogen.
Researchers at the University of Chicago have developed a new method for enhancing quantum information systems by integrating trapped atom arrays with photonic devices.
This innovation allows for scalable quantum computing and networking by overcoming previous technological incompatibilities. The design features a semi-open chip that minimizes interference and enhances atom connectivity, promising significant advances in computational speed and interconnectivity for larger quantum systems.
Merging technologies for enhanced quantum computing.
A team of engineers at the University of Science and Technology of China has developed a new way to code data onto a diamond with higher density than prior methods. In their paper published in the journal Nature Photonics, the group notes that such optical discs could hold data safely at room temperature for millions of years.
Prior research has shown that it is possible to code data onto a diamond, allowing for much longer data storage than any other known method. But such efforts have produced low-density storage. In this new effort, the research team developed a new method for etching data onto a diamond that allows for much denser data storage, and thus for storing more information onto a single diamond.
In their work, the researchers used diamond pieces just a few millimeters in length—they were pursuing a proof of concept, not a true storage medium. Future versions, they note, could be the size of a Blu-ray disc. The new method involved the use of a laser to remove single carbon atoms from the surface of the diamond, leaving a tiny cavity. The cavity, the researchers note, exhibits a certain level of brightness when another laser is shone on it.
We present a DNA self-assembly based molecular data writing strategy to enable parallel movable-type printing for scalable DNA storage.
Researchers have managed to coax a quantum computer to pulse with a rhythm unlike any before—a rhythm that defies conventional physics. For the first time, scientists have transformed a quantum processor into a robust time crystal, a bizarre state of matter that ticks endlessly without external energy.
This achievement, the work of physicists from China and the United States, could mark a turning point for quantum computing. By stabilizing the delicate systems that underpin this cutting-edge technology, the experiment hints at a path toward practical quantum computers capable of solving problems far beyond the reach of traditional machines.
Unlike conventional phases, such as solids or liquids, time crystals exist in a state of perpetual motion. Let me explain.
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Ten years ago, physicists discovered an anomaly that was dubbed the “ATOMKI anomaly”. The decays of certain atomic nuclei disagreed with our current understanding of physics. Particle physicists assigned the anomaly to a new particle, X17, often described as a fifth force. The anomaly was now tested by a follow-up experiment, but this is only the latest twist in a rather confusing story.
Paper: https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract…
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Quantum computers operate using quantum gates, but the complexity and large number of these gates can diminish their efficiency. A new “hybrid” approach reduces this complexity by utilizing natural system interactions, making quantum algorithms easier to execute.
This innovation helps manage the inherent “noise” issues of current quantum systems, enhancing their practical use. The approach has been effectively demonstrated with Grover’s algorithm, enabling efficient searches of large datasets without extensive error correction.
Challenges of Quantum Computing.
Researchers have successfully created electrically defined quantum dots in zinc oxide (ZnO) heterostructures, marking a significant milestone in the development of quantum technologies.
Details of their breakthrough were published in the journal Nature Communications on November 7, 2024.
Quantum dots, tiny semiconductor structures that can trap electrons in nanometer-scale spaces, have long been studied for their potential to serve as qubits in quantum computing. These dots are crucial for quantum computing because they allow scientists to control the behavior of electrons, similar to how a conductor might control a current of water flowing through pipes.
Integrated Information Theory (IIT) offers an explanation for the nature and source of consciousness. Initially proposed by Giulio Tononi in 2004, it claims that consciousness is identical to a certain kind of information, the realization of which requires physical, not merely functional, integration, and which can be measured mathematically according to the phi metric.
The theory attempts a balance between two different sets of convictions. On the one hand, it strives to preserve the Cartesian intuitions that experience is immediate, direct, and unified. This, according to IIT’s proponents and its methodology, rules out accounts of consciousness such as functionalism that explain experience as a system operating in a certain way, as well as ruling out any eliminativist theories that deny the existence of consciousness. On the other hand, IIT takes neuroscientific descriptions of the brain as a starting point for understanding what must be true of a physical system in order for it to be conscious. (Most of IIT’s developers and main proponents are neuroscientists.) IIT’s methodology involves characterizing the fundamentally subjective nature of consciousness and positing the physical attributes necessary for a system to realize it.
In short, according to IIT, consciousness requires a grouping of elements within a system that have physical cause-effect power upon one another. This in turn implies that only reentrant architecture consisting of feedback loops, whether neural or computational, will realize consciousness. Such groupings make a difference to themselves, not just to outside observers. This constitutes integrated information. Of the various groupings within a system that possess such causal power, one will do so maximally. This local maximum of integrated information is identical to consciousness.
