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Category: quantum physics – Page 1,028

Bill Gates: No reason to fear AI yet; in fact, it could be your new assistant

I am so glad to see this from Bill. Until we drastically improve the under pinning technology to an advance mature version of Quantum Computing; AI is not a threat in the non-criminal use. The only danger is when terrorists, drug cartels, and other criminals uses AI such as drones, robotics, bots, etc. to attack, burglarize, murder, apply their terror, etc.; and that is not AI doing these things on their own.

Munger, Gates on future of AI

Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway vice-chairman shares his thoughts on American Express, Costco and IBM’s future working with artificial intelligence. And Bill Gates, explains why it will be a huge help.

Quantum sensors for high-precision magnetometry of superconductors

Quantum Sensors enables precise imaging of magnetic fields of superconductors.

Scientists at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute and the Department of Physics at the University of Basel have developed a new method that has enabled them to image magnetic fields on the nanometer scale at temperatures close to absolute zero for the first time. They used spins in special diamonds as quantum sensors in a new kind of microscope to generate images of magnetic fields in superconductors with unrivaled precision. In this way the researchers were able to perform measurements that permit new insights in solid state physics, as they report in Nature Nanotechnology.

Researchers in the group led by the Georg-H. Endress Professor Patrick Maletinsky have been conducting research into so-called nitrogen-vacancy centers (NV centers) in diamonds for several years in order to use them as high-precision sensors. The NV centers are natural defects in the diamond crystal lattice. The electrons contained in the NVs can be excited and manipulated with light, and react sensitively to electrical and magnetic fields they are exposed to. It is the spin of these electrons that changes depending on the environment and that can be recorded using various measurement methods.

Maletinsky and his team have managed to place single NV spins at the tips of atomic force microscopes to perform nanoscale magnetic field imaging. So far, such analyses have always been conducted at room temperature. However, numerous fields of application require operation at temperatures close to absolute zero. Superconducting materials, for example, only develop their special properties at very low temperatures around −200°C. They then conduct electric currents without loss and can develop exotic magnetic properties with the formation of so-called vortices.

Could Aluminum Nitride Be Engineered to Produce Quantum Bits?

Interesting insight on Aluminum Nitride used to create Qubits.

http:///articles/could-aluminum-nitride-be-engineered-to-pro…nteresting insight.

Newswise — Quantum computers have the potential to break common cryptography techniques, search huge datasets and simulate quantum systems in a fraction of the time it would take today’s computers. But before this can happen, engineers need to be able to harness the properties of quantum bits or qubits.

Currently, one of the leading methods for creating qubits in materials involves exploiting the structural atomic defects in diamond. But several researchers at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Laboratory believe that if an analogue defect could be engineered into a less expensive material, the cost of manufacturing quantum technologies could be significantly reduced. Using supercomputers at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC), which is located at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), these researchers have identified a possible candidate in aluminum nitride. Their findings were published in Nature Scientific Reports.

“Silicon semiconductors are reaching their physical limits—it’ll probably happen within the next five to 10 years—but if we can implement qubits into semiconductors, we will be able to move beyond silicon,” says Hosung Seo, University of Chicago Postdoctoral Researcher and a first author of the paper.

Autonomous quantum error correction method greatly increases qubit coherence times

Closing the instability gap.

(Phys.org)—It might be said that the most difficult part of building a quantum computer is not figuring out how to make it compute, but rather finding a way to deal with all of the errors that it inevitably makes. Errors arise because of the constant interaction between the qubits and their environment, which can result in photon loss, which in turn causes the qubits to randomly flip to an incorrect state.

In order to flip the qubits back to their correct states, physicists have been developing an assortment of quantum techniques. Most of them work by repeatedly making measurements on the system to detect errors and then correct the errors before they can proliferate. These approaches typically have a very large overhead, where a large portion of the computing power goes to correcting errors.

In a new paper published in Physical Review Letters, Eliot Kapit, an assistant professor of physics at Tulane University in New Orleans, has proposed a different approach to quantum error correction. His method takes advantage of a recently discovered unexpected benefit of quantum noise: when carefully tuned, quantum noise can actually protect qubits against unwanted noise. Rather than actively measuring the system, the new method passively and autonomously suppresses and corrects errors, using relatively simple devices and relatively little computing power.

NIST aiming for quantum-proof crypto

Due to the pace of Quantum Computing is developing; NIST is rushing to create a Quantum proof cryptographic algorithms to prevent QC hacking. Like I have stated, I believe we’re now less that 7 years away for QC being in many mainstream devices, infrastructure, etc. And, China and it’s partnership with Australia; the race is now on and hotter than ever.

The National Institute for Standards and Technology has begun to look into quantum cybersecurity, according to a new report that details and plans out ways scientists could protect these futuristic computers.

April 29, 2016.

Ransomware has taken off in 2016, already eclipsing the number of attacks observed in a recently published threat report from Symantec.

Futuristic ‘post-quantum’ cryptography is subject of UWT symposium

Post-quantum cryptography discussion in Tacoma WA on May 5th discussing hacking by QC hackers and leveraging Cryptography algorithms to offset the attacks; may be of interest to sit in and even join in the debates. I will try attend if I can because it would be interesting to see the arguments raised and see the responses.

The University of Washington Tacoma Institute of Technology will present a discussion about the esoteric field of post-quantum cryptography at the Northwest Cybersecurity Symposium on May 5.

“I’ve been researching post-quantum cryptography for years, finding ways to protect against a threat that doesn’t yet exist,” said Anderson Nascimento, assistant professor of computer science at the institute, in a release.

Post-quantum cryptography refers to encryption that would be secure against an attack by a quantum computer — a kind of supercomputer using quantum mechanics, which, so far, exists only in theory.

Important effect observed in development of quantum storage

I read this article and it’s complaints about the fragile effects of data processing and storing information in a Quantum Computing platform. However, I suggest the writer to review the news released 2 weeks ago about the new Quantum Data Bus highlighted by PC World, GizMag, etc. It is about to go live in the near future. Also, another article to consider is today’s Science Daily articile on electron spin currents which highlights how this technique effectively processes information.

Rare-earth materials are prime candidates for storing quantum information, because the undesirable interaction with their environment is extremely weak. Consequently however, this lack of interaction implies a very small response to light, making it hard to read and write data. Leiden physicists have now observed a record-high Purcell effect, which enhances the material’s interaction with light. Publication on April 25 in Nature Photonics (“Multidimensional Purcell effect in an ytterbium-doped ring resonator”).

Ordinary computers perform calculations with bits—ones and zeros. Quantum computers on the other hand use qubits. These information units are a superposition of 0 and 1; they represent simultaneously a zero and a one. It enables quantum computers to process information in a totally different way, making them exponentially faster for certain tasks, like solving mathematical problems or decoding encryptions.

Fragile.

The difficult part now is to actually build a quantum computer in real life. Rather than silicon transistors and memories, you will need physical components that can process and store quantum information, otherwise the key to the whole idea is lost. But the problem with quantum systems is that they are more or less coupled to their environments, making them lose their quantum properties and become ‘classical’. Thermal noise, for example, can destroy the whole system. It makes quantum systems extremely fragile and hard to work with.

The light stuff: A brand-new way to produce electron spin currents

With apologies to Isaac Asimov, the most exciting phase to hear in science isn’t “Eureka,” but “That’s funny…”

A “that’s funny” moment in a Colorado State University physics lab has led to a fundamental discovery that could play a key role in next-generation microelectronics.

Publishing in Nature Physics April 25, the scientists, led by Professor of Physics Mingzhong Wu in CSU’s College of Natural Sciences, are the first to demonstrate using non-polarized light to produce in a metal what’s called a spin voltage — a unit of power produced from the quantum spinning of an individual electron. Controlling electron spins for use in memory and logic applications is a relatively new field called spin electronics, or spintronics, and the subject of the 2007 Nobel Prize in Physics.

Quantum computing, here we come: A qubit data bus may soon be possible

Transporting information from one place to another is a key part of any computing platform, and now researchers have figured out a way to make it possible in the quantum world.

To prove their point, they demonstrated what’s known as perfect state transfer on a photonic qubit that’s entangled with another qubit at a different location.

In traditional computing, numbers are represented by either 0s or 1s. Quantum computing relies on atomic-scale quantum bits, or “qubits,” that can be simultaneously 0 and 1—a state known as superposition. Quantum bits can also become “entangled” so that they are dependent on one another even across distances.

Qubiz aims to make quantum technology practical

Excellent news!!!!!

The Quantum Innovation Center or Qubiz has been launched in Copenhagen with the goal of translating quantum physics into practical quantum technology. The Danish project involves the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, the Technical University of Denmark DTU, and Aarhus University, along with 18 industrial partners. Qubiz will be building on the very strong Danish research platform within quantum technology, a platform that has its origin in Niels Bohr’s pioneering work 100 years ago.

The CEO for the new Center is Søren Isaksen, who previously served as the CTO of the NKT Group and is a member and chairmen of various research councils. In addition to leading the center, his job will be to reach out to Danish and foreign companies and, with the researchers, to help find out where there is potential for starting new businesses. A 2-year seed funding grant of 11M EUR from the Innovation Fund Denmark enables the hiring of new employees with business and engineering backgrounds, as well as researchers.

According to Isaksen, the Center will engage with existing businesses, Danish as well as international companies, to develop new products and lay the foundation for new businesses. On April 15, Qubiz held a kick-off event that included seven elevator-pitches presenting potential startups—two of these have now being established and more are on the way.

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