European researchers are developing quantum computers using light and glass, in a collaboration that promises breakthroughs in computing power, battery technology and scientific discovery.
Category: quantum physics – Page 55
“Australia Just Changed Batteries Forever”: Quantum Tech Unleashed With 1,000 Times the Life, Leaving Global Energy Giants Reeling in Shock
A quantum battery operates on the principles of quantum mechanics, diverging from traditional batteries which rely on ion flow for charging and discharging. In quantum batteries, energy is stored by moving electrons into higher energy states with photons acting as charge carriers. During charging, photons transfer their energy to electrons, enabling storage.
Key quantum properties, such as entanglement and superabsorption, are harnessed to enhance the charging rate. Entanglement allows particles to function cohesively during the charging or discharging process, while superabsorption increases the energy storage capacity, leading to higher energy densities. Despite their theoretical potential and scalability, practical quantum batteries have faced challenges, with existing prototypes unable to sustain energy beyond a few nanoseconds.
Quantum objects’ dual nature mapped with new formula for ‘wave-ness’ and ’particle-ness‘
Since its development 100 years ago, quantum mechanics has revolutionized our understanding of nature, revealing a bizarre world in which an object can act like both waves and particles, and behave differently depending on whether it is being watched.
In recent decades, researchers exploring this wave-particle duality have learned to measure the relative “wave-ness” and “particle-ness” of quantum objects, helping to explain how and when they veer between wave-like or particle-like behaviors.
Now, in a paper for Physical Review Research, researchers at the Stevens Institute of Technology report an important new breakthrough: a simple but powerful formula that describes the precise closed mathematical relationship between a quantum object’s “wave-ness” and “particle-ness.”
Speed test of ‘tunneling’ electrons challenges alternative interpretation of quantum mechanics
As the photons traveled along the waveguide and tunneled into the barrier, they also tunneled into the secondary waveguide, jumping back and forth between the two at a consistent rate, allowing the research team to calculate their speed.
By combining this element of time with measurements of the photon’s rate of decay inside the barrier, the researchers were able to calculate dwell time, which was found to be finite.
The researchers write, “Our findings contribute to the ongoing tunneling time debate and can be viewed as a test of Bohmian trajectories in quantum mechanics. Regarding the latter, we find that the measured energy–speed relationship does not align with the particle dynamics postulated by the guiding equation in Bohmian mechanics.”
Carefully tuned laser beam protects quantum spins from noise
Researchers have discovered a simple yet powerful way to protect atoms from losing information—a key challenge in developing reliable quantum technologies.
By shining a single, carefully tuned laser beam on a gas of atoms, they managed to keep the atoms’ internal spins synchronized, dramatically reducing the rate at which information is lost. In quantum sensors and memory systems, atoms often lose their magnetic orientation —or “spin”—when they collide with each other or the walls of their container.
This phenomenon, known as spin relaxation, severely limits the performance and stability of such devices. Traditional methods to counteract it have required operating in extremely low magnetic fields and using bulky magnetic shielding.
Quantum Breakthrough Could Make Your Devices 1,000 Times Faster
Your days of being frustrated by a sluggish smartphone or laptop could be coming to an end: scientists have discovered a new technique for controlling electronic states in quantum materials that could eventually make our gadgets up to 1,000 times faster.
Quantum materials are those that display strange behaviors and properties governed by quantum mechanics. They provide a glimpse into a separate realm of physics, where the standard laws don’t apply.
Here, researchers from institutions across the US manipulated the temperature of a layered quantum material called 1T-TaS₂, enabling it to instantly shift between two opposite electronic phases: insulation and conduction. That ability to block or allow the flow of electricity is key to how transistors in computer chips work.
Adding up Feynman diagrams to make predictions about real materials
Caltech scientists have found a fast and efficient way to add up large numbers of Feynman diagrams, the simple drawings physicists use to represent particle interactions. The new method has already enabled the researchers to solve a longstanding problem in the materials science and physics worlds known as the polaron problem, giving scientists and engineers a way to predict how electrons will flow in certain materials, both conventional and quantum.
In the 1940s, physicist Richard Feynman first proposed a way to represent the various interactions that take place between electrons, photons, and other fundamental particles using 2D drawings that involve straight and wavy lines intersecting at vertices. Though they look simple, these Feynman diagrams allow scientists to calculate the probability that a particular collision, or scattering, will take place between particles.
Since particles can interact in many ways, many different diagrams are needed to depict every possible interaction. And each diagram represents a mathematical expression. Therefore, by summing all the possible diagrams, scientists can arrive at quantitative values related to particular interactions and scattering probabilities.
Dr. Thomas Ehmer, Ph.D. — Merck KGaA Darmstadt, Germany — Quantum Computing Innovation In Pharma
Quantum Computing Innovation In Pharma — Dr. Thomas Ehmer, Ph.D. — Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany
Dr. Thomas Ehmer, Ph.D. (https://www.linkedin.com/in/tehmer/) is a seasoned technology strategist with over two decades of experience in IT innovation, business development, and R&D within the pharmaceutical industry, and co-founder of the Quantum Interest Group, at Merck KGaA Darmstadt, Germany (https://www.emdgroup.com/en).
Dr. Ehmer currently is in the Sector Data Office — AI Governance and Innovation Incubator at Merck KGaA Darmstadt, Germany, where he scouts emerging and disruptive technologies, demonstrating their potential value for R&D applications, with a focus on quantum technologies.
Throughout his career at Merck KGaA Darmstadt, Germany, Dr. Ehmer has played a pivotal role in shaping IT strategy, business process optimization, and digital transformation across the entire pharmaceutical value chain, currently focusing on transparent AI and how and where emerging technology can help patients live a better life. His expertise spans technology scouting, business analysis, and IT program leadership, having successfully driven major global projects.
Beyond his corporate career, Dr. Ehmer is an active private seed investor and has contributed to quantum computing research and applications in drug discovery, authoring publications on the potential of quantum computing and machine learning in pharmaceutical R&D (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/9783527840748.ch26).
Quantum battery model achieves theoretical speed limit, demonstrates genuine advantage
Over the past few years, researchers have developed various quantum technologies, alternatives to classical devices that operate by leveraging the principles of quantum mechanics. These technologies have the potential to outperform their classical counterparts in specific settings or scenarios.
Among the many quantum technologies proposed and devised so far are quantum batteries, energy storage devices that could theoretically store energy more efficiently than classical batteries, while also charging more rapidly. Despite their predicted potential, most quantum battery solutions proposed to date have not yet proven to exhibit a genuine quantum advantage, or in other words, to perform better than their classical counterparts.
Researchers at PSL Research University and the University of Pisa recently introduced a new deceptively simple quantum battery model that could exhibit a genuine quantum advantage over a classical analog battery. The new model, outlined in a paper published in Physical Review Letters, was found to successfully reach the so-called quantum speed limit, the maximum speed that a quantum system could theoretically achieve.