Lifeboat Foundation

Building a plane while flying it isn’t typically a goal for most, but for a team of Harvard-led physicists that general idea might be a key to finally building large-scale quantum computers.

Described in a new paper in Nature, the research team, which includes collaborators from QuEra Computing, MIT, and the University of Innsbruck, developed a new approach for processing quantum information that allows them to dynamically change the layout of atoms in their system by moving and connecting them with each other in the midst of computation.

This ability to shuffle the qubits (the fundamental building blocks of quantum computers and the source of their massive processing power) during the computation process while preserving their quantum state dramatically expands processing capabilities and allows for self-correction of errors. Clearing this hurdle marks a major step toward building large-scale machines that leverage the bizarre characteristics of quantum mechanics and promise to bring about real-world breakthroughs in material science, communication technologies, finance, and many other fields.

On the highway of heat transfer, thermal energy is moved by way of quantum particles called phonons. But at the nanoscale of today’s most cutting-edge semiconductors, those phonons don’t remove enough heat. That’s why Purdue University researchers are focused on opening a new nanoscale lane on the heat transfer highway by using hybrid quasiparticles called “polaritons.” Credit: Purdue University photo/DALL-E.

In the culmination of a US community planning process that began in late 2020, the High Energy Physics Advisory Panel has approved the recommendations of the P5 Report.

Long before researchers discovered the electron and its role in generating electrical current, they knew about electricity and were exploring its potential. One thing they learned early on was that metals were great conductors of both electricity and heat.

And in 1,853, two scientists showed that those two admirable properties of metals were somehow related: At any given temperature, the ratio of electronic conductivity to thermal conductivity was roughly the same in any metal they tested.

This so-called Wiedemann-Franz law has held ever since — except in quantum materials, where electrons stop behaving as individual particles and glom together into a sort of electron soup.

Physicists at RIKEN have developed an electronic device that hosts unusual states of matter, which could one day be useful for quantum computation.

When a material exists as an ultrathin layer—a mere one or a few atoms thick—it has totally different properties from thicker samples of the same material. That’s because confining electrons to a 2D plane gives rise to exotic states. Because of their flat dimensions and their broad compatibility with existing semiconductor technologies, such 2D materials are promising for harnessing new phenomenon in electronic devices.

These states include quantum spin Hall insulators, which conduct electricity along their edges but are electrically insulating in their interiors. Such systems when coupled with superconductivity have been proposed as a route toward engineering topological superconducting states that have potential application in future topological quantum computers.

Two-dimensional materials, which are only a few atoms thick, can exhibit some incredible properties, such as the ability to carry electric charge extremely efficiently, which could boost the performance of next-generation electronic devices.

However, integrating 2D materials into devices and systems like computer chips is notoriously difficult. These ultrathin structures can be damaged by conventional fabrication techniques, which often rely on the use of chemicals, high temperatures, or destructive processes like etching.

To overcome this challenge, researchers from MIT and elsewhere have developed a new technique to integrate 2D materials into devices in a single step while keeping the surfaces of the materials and the resulting interfaces pristine and free from defects.

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Computer and AI giant rolls out machine using ‘Heron’ chips using subatomic particles instead of ones and zeros.

On the highway of heat transfer, thermal energy is moved by way of quantum particles called phonons. But at the nanoscale of today’s most cutting-edge semiconductors, those phonons don’t remove enough heat. That’s why Purdue University researchers are focused on opening a new nanoscale lane on the heat transfer highway by using hybrid quasiparticles called “polaritons.”

Thomas Beechem loves heat transfer. He talks about it loud and proud, like a preacher at a big tent revival.

“We have several ways of describing energy,” said Beechem, associate professor of mechanical engineering. “When we talk about light, we describe it in terms of particles called ‘photons.’ Heat also carries energy in predictable ways, and we describe those waves of energy as ‘phonons.’ But sometimes, depending on the material, photons and phonons will come together and make something new called a ‘polariton.’ It carries energy in its own way, distinct from both photons or phonons.”