Quantum computers still face limits when it comes to storing information. Researchers at ETH Zurich are now turning to mechanical vibrations rather than electromagnetic memory. Their new vibrating memory can store significantly more information in a smaller volume. Combined with a suitable computer architecture, it also enables the efficient solution of complex computational problems.
The computer works almost like a guitar. The ETH Zurich quantum physicist Yiwen Chu and her team use tiny mechanical vibrations to store and process information. These vibrations behave much like the vibrating strings of a guitar, which produce musical notes.
What sounds like music is, in fact, quantum physics. The vibrations that Chu and her team work with are far beyond the range of human hearing. They occur deep inside a quantum chip, where they are used to store quantum information.
