A new type of superconducting qubit could solve a “crowding” problem that hinders the development of superconducting quantum computers with large numbers of qubits.
It may be possible to develop superconductors that operate at room temperature with further knowledge of the relationship between spin liquids and superconductivity, which would transform our daily lives.
Superconductors offer enormous technical and economic promise for applications such as high-speed hovertrains, MRI machines, efficient power lines, quantum computing.
Performing computation using quantum-mechanical phenomena such as superposition and entanglement.
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China Launches World’s Fastest Quantum Computers | China’s Advancement In Quantum Computers #technology.
“Techno Jungles”
Companies and research labs across the globe are working towards getting their nascent quantum technologies out of the lab and into the real world, with the US technology giant IBM being a key player. In May this year, IBM Quantum unveiled its latest roadmap for the future of quantum computing in the coming decade, and the firm has set some ambitious targets. Having announced its Eagle processor with 127 quantum bits (qubits) last year, the company is now developing the 433-qubit Osprey processor for a debut later this year, to be followed in 2023 by the 1121-qubit Condor.
But beyond that, the company says, the game will switch to assembling such processors into modular circuits, in which the chips are wired together via sparser quantum or classical interconnections. That effort will culminate in what they refer to as their 4158-qubit Kookaburra device in 2025. Beyond then, IBM forecasts modular processors with 100,000 or more qubits, capable of computing without the errors that currently make quantum computing a matter of finding workarounds for the noisiness of the qubits. With this approach, the company’s quantum computing team is confident that it can achieve a general “quantum advantage”, where quantum computers will consistently outperform classical computers and conduct complex computations beyond the means of classical devices.
While he was in London on his way to the 28 th Solvay conference in Brussels, which tackled quantum information, Physics World caught up with physicist Jay Gambetta, vice-president of IBM Quantum. Having spearheaded much of the company’s advances over the past two decades, Gambetta explained how these goals might be reached and what they will entail for the future of quantum computing.
Researchers produce analogues of hard-to-study quantum phenomena in a gas of strontium atoms near absolute zero.
Recently, researchers have begun using ultracold atomic gases to simulate phenomena that are difficult to study in their natural environments. Using electromagnetic fields, for example, they can orchestrate interatomic interactions that are analogous to interactions in condensed-matter systems, which they can then study with greater experimental control than the real examples allow. Now David Wilkowski of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore and colleagues use an ultracold atomic gas to simulate a condensed-matter system’s spin dynamics [1].
Wilkowski’s team cools a gas of strontium-87 atoms to 30 nK. Then, using three convergent laser beams, they drive the gas through various transitions until the atoms populate two so-called dark states, in which quantum mechanics forbids the atoms from undergoing spontaneous emission.
Researchers have demonstrated that a solid can exhibit an enhanced nonlinear optical phenomenon usually seen only in cold atomic gases.
Among the benefits brought about by the invention of the laser in the 1960s is the ability to generate light at an intensity great enough to produce nonlinear optical effects. Such nonlinear effects have entered daily use in applications that include infrared-to-visible-light wavelength conversion (in a green laser pointer, for example) and two-photon excitation (in fluorescence microscopes for observing biological living tissue). Now Corentin Morin of the École Normale Supérieure in Paris and colleagues address a third-order nonlinear process called the Kerr effect, which manifests as a change in a material’s refractive index when it is illuminated with light of different intensities [1]. The researchers demonstrate a giant Kerr nonlinearity in a solid, a state of matter that has, until now, exhibited only a weak Kerr effect. The result implies the possibility of scalable nonlinear quantum optics without the need of cold atoms in high vacuum.
The key to the discovery by Morin and colleagues is a quasiparticle called a Rydberg exciton, the understanding of which rests on two concepts. The first concept is the Rydberg series, which is the discrete energy-level structure available to an atom’s outermost electron, and which is indexed by the principal quantum number n. A high-lying Rydberg state has a large n and exhibits properties such as a large electron orbital radius, a long lifetime, and a large dipole moment, all of which are missing in the ground state. The second concept is a hydrogen-atom-like quasiparticle called an exciton—a negatively charged electron, photoexcited across a semiconductor’s band gap, Coulomb-bound to a positively charged hole left in the valence band.
How do you find novel materials with very specific properties—for example, special electronic properties which are needed for quantum computers? This is usually a very complicated task: various compounds are created, in which potentially promising atoms are arranged in certain crystal structures, and then the material is examined, for example in the low-temperature laboratory of TU Wien.
Now, a cooperation between Rice University (Texas), TU Wien and other international research institutions has succeeded in tracking down suitable materials on the computer. New theoretical methods are used to identify particularly promising candidates from the vast number of possible materials. Measurements at TU Wien have shown the materials do indeed have the required properties and the method works. This is an important step forward for research on quantum materials. The results have now been published in the journal Nature Physics.
Wait, what? really?
For the first time, scientists were able to create particles without precursor particles or colliding two quanta together. Using the Schwinger effect, they could create matter with the aid of electromagnetic fields.
Quantum tech is going green.
A new take on highly sensitive magnetic field sensors ditches the power-hungry lasers that previous devices have relied on to make their measurements and replaces them with sunlight. Lasers can gobble 100 watts or so of power — like keeping a bright lightbulb burning. The innovation potentially untethers quantum sensors from that energy need. The result is an environmentally friendly prototype on the forefront of technology, researchers report in an upcoming issue of Physical Review X Energy.
The big twist is in how the device uses sunlight. It doesn’t use solar cells to convert light into electricity. Instead, the sunlight does the job of the laser’s light, says Jiangfeng Du, a physicist at the University of Science and Technology of China in Hefei.
Scientists simulated an organic molecule at the atomic scale. What does this mean for the future of quantum computing?
