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Category: computing – Page 61

Record-breaking photonics approach traps light on a chip for millions of cycles

For years, scientists have dreamed of using atomically thin van der Waals (vdW) materials to build faster, more efficient photonic chips. These materials can be stacked and tuned with extraordinary precision, opening possibilities far beyond those of conventional technologies. The challenge is that they are extremely fragile, making them notoriously difficult to shape with standard nanofabrication tools.

Now, an international team of researchers including scientists from Aalto University has overcome this long-standing barrier. By developing a method for what can be described as nanoscale surgery, they were able to sculpt these delicate materials without destroying them, achieving record-breaking performance in the process.

Published in Nature Materials, the work marks an important step forward for vdW materials, shifting them from passive coatings toward becoming the active building blocks of future photonic and quantum devices.

Universal surface-growth law confirmed in two dimensions after 40 years

Crystals, bacterial colonies, flame fronts: the growth of surfaces was first described in the 1980s by the Kardar–Parisi–Zhang equation. Since then, it has been regarded as a fundamental model in physics, with implications for mathematics, biology, and computer science.

Now—40 years later—a Würzburg-based research team from the Cluster of Excellence ctd.qmat has achieved the first experimental demonstration of KPZ behavior on 2D surfaces in space and time.

This was made possible by sophisticated materials engineering and a bold experimental approach: researchers injected polaritons—hybrid particles composed of light and matter—into the material. The results have been published in Science.

Framework: ‘There is a very real scenario in which personal computing as we know it is dead’

Though the point of a blog post like this is to get eyes on its event, it doesn’t just seem like lip service. Framework has been making modular laptops for years now, and even put out a desktop last year. Last year, the Framework 12 laptop got a 10/10 from iFixit regarding its repairability.

Framework says that every product it ships is in service of making computers “you can own at the deepest level and do what you want with.”

Framework, like almost every company, has been hit by the memory crisis. In January this year, it reportedly “held off as long as we could” but had to jack up the prices of its desktops and mainboards. And just this week, Framework said stabilising memory prices are simply a ‘temporary reprieve’ and that there would be more price increases to come in 2026.

New Simulations Preserve Quantum Rules While Modelling Complex Materials

Until now, accurately modelling both spin and orbital motion in materials with spin-orbit coupling meant sacrificing computational speed. A new mixed quantum-classical model, based on Koopman wavefunctions, overcomes this limitation, accurately simulating these dynamics even where traditional methods fail. The approach reproduces full quantum results, particularly when a harmonic potential is present, opening new avenues for materials design.

Robust against noise, geometric-phase swap gates bring stability to quantum operations

Researchers at ETH Zurich have realized particularly stable quantum logical operations with qubits made of neutral atoms. Since these operations, called quantum gates, are based on geometric phases, they are extremely robust against experimental noise and can be used in quantum computers in the future.

Quantum bits, or qubits, which are required for building quantum computers, come in different kinds. In recent years, many research institutes and companies have focused on superconducting circuits and trapped ions. However, neutral atoms trapped with laser light also have a lot going for them: since they carry no electric charge, they are less sensitive to disturbances. Moreover, trapping with laser light makes it easy to realize several thousand qubits in a single system—using superconductors or ions this is much more difficult.

Nevertheless, neutral atoms have their own problems. In quantum computers, qubits exist in superposition states of the logic values 0 and 1. To perform calculations with them, one needs to execute quantum logic operations, also known as quantum gates.

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