quantum computing
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Flawed diamonds are perfect ingredients for quantum computing, just add time travel
Ready to suspend your brain cells in a superposition of disbelief? Good, because the latest news published in Nature is that diamonds are a quantum computer's best friend -- particularly if they're flawed. An international team of scientists sought out sub-atomic impurities in a 1mm-thick fragment of over-priced carbon and used these as qubits to perform successful calculations. A "rogue" nitrogen nucleus provided one qubit, while a free electron became a second. Unlike previous attempts at solid-state quantum computing, this new effort used an extra technique to protect the system from decoherence errors: microwave pulses were fired at the electron qubit to "time-reverse" inconsistencies in its spinning motion. Don't fully get it? Us neither. In any case, it probably won't stop jewellers tut-tutting to themselves.
IBM: We're on the cusp of the Quantum Computing revolution (video)
Technology's holy grail is the development of a "perfect" Quantum Computer. Traditional computers recognize information as bits: binary information representing "On" or "Off" states. A quantum computer uses qubits: operating in superposition, a qubit exists in all states simultaneously -- not just "On" or "Off," but every possible state in-between. It would theoretically be able to instantly access every piece of information at the same time, meaning that a 250 qubit computer would contain more data than there are particles in the universe. IBM thinks it's closer than ever to realizing this dream and if you want to know more, we have the full details after the break.
Single atom transistors point to the future of quantum computers, death of Moore's law
Transistors -- the basic building block of the complex electronic devices around you. Literally billions of them make up that Core i7 in your gaming rig and Moore's law says that number will double every 18 months as they get smaller and smaller. Researchers at the University of New South Wales may have found the limit of this basic computational rule however, by creating the world's first single atom transistor. A single phosphorus atom was placed into a silicon lattice and read with a pair of extremely tiny silicon leads that allowed them to observe both its transistor behavior and its quantum state. Presumably this spells the end of the road for Moore's Law, as it would seem all but impossible to shrink transistors any farther. But, it could also points to a future featuring miniaturized solid-state quantum computers.
Yale Physicists develop quantum computing error correction, are a qubit pleased with themselves
We're big fans of quantum computing, and hopefully it's about to get a lot more reliable. Researchers at Yale have demonstrated quantum error correction in a solid state system for the first time. Quantum bits were created from "artificial" atoms using superconducting circuits, these qubits are then given either of the typical bit states of "1" or "0," or the quantum state of both simultaneously. The researchers developed a technique that identifies each qubit's initial state, so any erroneous changes can be reversed on the fly. Until now, errors have been a barrier in quantum computing, accumulating and ultimately causing computational failure. A reliable means of fixing these state changes is essential to developing a computer with an exponential speed-up, and fully realizing the quantum dream. The team at Yale hopes that this research might mean its platform of superconducting circuits becomes the one upon which quantum computing is ultimately built. We, on the other hand, just want our parallel universe.
Quantum speed limits within reach, present moves ever closer to future
Got your wire-rimmed spectacles on? Had a full night's rest? Eager to get those synapses firing? Here's hoping, because Marc Cheneau and co. are doing everything they can to stretch the sheer meaning of quantum understanding. The aforesaid scientists recently published an article that details a method for measuring quantum particle interaction in a way that has previously been considered impossible. Put simply (or, as simply as possible), the famed Lieb-Robinson bound was "quantified experimentally for the first time, using a real quantum gas." The technobabble rolls on quite severely from there, but the key here is realize just how much of an impact this has on the study of quantum entanglement, and in turn, quantum computing. For those interested in seeing what lives in a world beyond silicon, dig into the links below. You may never escape, though -- just sayin'.
This electric wire is four atoms thick, and you thought speaker cable was fiddly (video)
This should come as a great relief to anyone planning a quantum computer self-build: wires still conduct electricity and obey key laws of classical physics even when they're built at the nanoscale. Researchers at Purdue and Melbourne universities used chains of phosphorus atoms inside a silicon crystal to create a wire that's just four atoms wide and a single atom high -- 20 times smaller than the previous record-holder and infinitely narrower than anything you'd find at Newegg. The video after the break almost explains how they did it.
Air Force planning holographic quantum computers to help Sam Beckett leap home
Did you know that light is a better transmitter of quantum computer information than any sort of cabling? Because it isn't altered by electric and magnetic fields, it would be perfect for carrying data if photons would stop being so snobby and interact with one another. Only highly-sensitive interferometers can overcome that problem, and they're so fussy that a mild sneeze near to one would wreck its calibration. Air Force researcher Jonathan McDonald thinks he's got a solution: project holographic interferometers onto glass where it'll "freeze" and become much more stable. There are only two downsides: you can't edit the programming, nor would it scale very well, because you'd need physical space to set up the individual glass plates. On the other hand, the materials required to build one are all commercially available, and we're sure the Air Force has a hangar or two going spare, so perhaps we could see holographic quantum computers in the near future -- or at least a very decent laser light-show.
Groundbreaking photonic chip could spark Quantum Computing revolution
Quantum Computers already exist, but not in the "universal" form that would truly revolutionize computing. That's why the latest innovation from Bristol University has so much promise: a team from its center for Quantum Photonics has built a reprogrammable quantum chip. The 70mm x 3mm box is capable of measuring and manipulating entanglement and mixture -- fundamental elements of the mythical "universal" chip. It's taken the team six years to reach this point, but now it'll concentrate on scaling up the technology to create more complex systems, hopefully in time for our next smartphone purchase.
Scientists manipulate electron, this time everyone wins
Notoriously difficult to pin down, electrons have always been free spirits -- until now that is. According to a paper published by science journal Nature, folk at Cambridge University much cleverer than we have tamed single electrons, succeeding in coaxing them directly from point-to-point. The technique involves creating a small hole in gallium arsenide, called a "quantum dot," then creating a channel of energy higher than the neighboring electrons to shuttle cargo off to another empty "dot." Why should you care? Well, while you might not see this technology in the next smartphone, it should give quantum computing a bit of a nudge forward, smoothing the rate of information transfer. If the concept works out, it'll improve the way qubits move around those sub-atomic circuits, where jumping around like a frog in a sock is generally considered bad form. [Image courtesy of the io9]
Researchers wed quantum processor with quantum memory, quaziness ensues
Quantum computing has a long way to go before becoming truly mainstream, but that certainly hasn't stopped us from indulging in dreams of a qubit-based existence. The latest bit of fantasy fodder comes from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where researchers have become the first to combine a quantum processor with memory mechanisms on a single chip. To do this, Matteo Mariantoni and his team of scientists connected two qubits with a quantum bus and linked each of them to a memory element, capable of storing their current values in the same way that RAM stores data on conventional computers. These qubit-memory links also contained arrays of resonators -- jagged, yet easily controlled circuits that can store values for shorter periods of time. The qubits, meanwhile, were constructed using superconducting circuits, allowing the UCSB team to nestle their qubits even closer together, in accordance with the von Neumann architecture that governs most commercial computers. Once everything was in place, the researchers used their system to run complex algorithms and operations that could be eventually used to decode data encryption. The next step, of course, is to scale up the design, though Mariantoni says that shouldn't be too much of a problem, thanks to his system's resonators -- which, according to him, "represent the future of quantum computing with integrated circuits."
Ultra-pure material lets electrons discover each other on the quantum dance floor
These guys aren't Purdue University professors, they're DJs. That thing on the left? It isn't a high-mobility gallium-arsenide molecular beam epitaxy system, it's their decks. It creates an ultra-pure material so perfectly latticed that it traps electrons between its layers and stops them bouncing around like drunken fools at the high school prom. By squeezing them ever so tightly, it lulls the particles into an "exotic" slow dance, at which point they become "aware" of each other and start performing correlated motions that are essential for quantum computing. That's a still a long way off, but if one day we find ourselves affixing gallium arsenide swabs to our quantum motherboards, we'll raise our lighters in the air. Informative PR after the break.
D-Wave sells first commercial quantum computer to Lockheed Martin
Who found ten million dollars to drop on the first commercially available quantum computer? Lockheed Martin, it seems, as the aerospace defense contractor has just begun a "multi-year contract" with the quantum annealing experts at D-Wave to develop... nothing that they're ready or willing to publicly discuss at this time. This "strategic relationship" marks the second major vote of confidence in D-Wave's technology, after Google built image detection algorithms for the company's processors a couple years back. Or, perhaps Lockheed Martin just wants a new shiny black toy for the Skunk Works labs. PR after the break.
D-Wave One claims mantle of first commercial quantum computer
Whether or not D-Wave has actually built a quantum computer is still a matter of debate (though, a study authored by the company and published in Nature claims to prove its success) but, whatever it is these crafty Canadians have created, you can order one now and start crunching qubits with abandon. The D-Wave One is the first commercially available quantum computer and, while its 128-qubit processor can only handle very specific tasks and is easily outperformed by traditional CPUs, it could represent a revolution in the field of supercomputing. As D-Wave scales up to thousands or tens-of-thousands of qubits, complex number theory problems and advanced cryptographic systems could crumble before the mighty power of quantum annealing... or at least give us faster Google searches. Just out of curiosity, we contacted D-Wave to see how much we'd have to cough up for a quantum desktop of our own, but we've yet to hear back. Update: Joseph passed along an e-mail from the company with a little more information, including a price: $10,000,000. Yep, ten large, and we're not sure that includes the liquid helium required to keep it cooled.
Researchers show off scalable architecture for quantum computing, expand our minds
Okay, so we might be chasing the flying unicorn of modern technology here -- and, no, we're not talking about the white iPhone 4 -- but as you've probably noticed, our hunger for a quantum computer is basically insatiable. Lucky for us, some folks who actually know something about producing qubits are similarly persistent -- a team of researchers recently presented a scalable quantum chip at a meeting of the American Physical Society in good old Texas. The 6 x 6-cm processor sports four qubits, the basic units of quantum computing, and its creators say it has the potential to be scaled up to support 10 of the things within the year. So what does that mean for our quest for the ultimate super computer? Well, it means we're closer than we used to be... and the dream lives on.
Scientists create 10 billion qubits in silicon, get us closer than ever to quantum computing
We are totally ready for a quantum computer. Browse the dusty Engadget archives and you'll find many posts about the things, each charting another step along the way to our supposed quantum future. Here's another step, one that we think is a pretty big one. An international team of scientists has managed to generate 10 billion quantum entangled bits, the basic building block of a quantum computer, and embed them all in silicon which is, of course, the basic building block of a boring computer. It sounds like there's still some work to be done to enable the team to actually modify and read the states of those qubits, and probably a decade's worth of thumb-twiddling before they let any of us try to run Crysis on it, but yet another step has been made. [Image credit: Smite-Meister]
Caltech research could lead to quantum hard drives, networks, parallel universes
Quantum anything has typically fallen into our oft-used category of 'awesome things that'll never happen,' but if a crew of researchers at the California Institute of Technology have anything to say about it, they'll soon be changing the fortunes of that segment. The team has recently demonstrated quantum entanglement for a quantum state stored in four spatially distinct atomic memories, and while that probably just blew your mind a little bit, the breakdown is fairly interesting. Essentially, they've uncovered a quantum interface between the atomic memories, which is said to "represent something akin to a computer hard drive for entanglement." If extended, it could pave the way toward quantum networks, and in turn, massive webs of quantum computers. We're obviously decades out from understanding what this all means for the common computer user, but just remember this: "for an entangled quantum system, there exists no objective physical reality for the system's properties." And you thought The Matrix was deep.
Researchers develop means to reliably read an electron's spin, take us one step closer to the quantum zone
Another day, another step bringing us closer to the next big revolution in the world of computing: replacing your transistory bits with qubits. Researchers at Australia's Universities of New South Wales and of Melbourne, along with Finland's Aalto University, have achieved the impossibly tiny goal of reliably reading the spin of a single electron. That may not sound like much, but let's just see you do it quickly without affecting said spin. This particular implementation relies on single atoms of phosphorus embedded in silicon. Yes, silicon, meaning this type of qubit is rather more conventional than others we've read about. Of course, proper quantum computers depend on reading and writing the spin of individual electrons, so as of now we effectively have quantum ROM. When will that be quantum RAM? They're still working on that bit.
UK research team brings quantum computing closer than ever... or so they say
You know the drill -- some quirky research team whips up some phenomenal discovery in the middle of nowhere, gloats about it, gets it published in a journal you've never heard of it, and then it all vanishes into the ether, leaving your soul hurt and wondering why you ever got your hopes up in the first place. The Foundations wrote a little tune about this very situation back in 1968, but a UK team from the Center for Quantum Photonics led by Jeremy O'Brien are claiming that their latest discovery is no joke. According to him, most people have believed that a functional quantum computer wouldn't be a reality for at least another score, but he's saying "with real confidence that, using [his] new technique, a quantum computer could, within five years, be performing calculations that are outside the capabilities of conventional computers." The center of this bold claim is a new photonic chip that works on light rather than traditional electricity, and those who built it say that it could "pull important information out of the biggest databases almost instantaneously." Of course, this stuff would hit the Department of Defense long before it hits your basement, but it's on you to keep tabs on the progress. Wouldn't be let down again, now would we?
Quantum refrigerator could cool your quantum computer, allow for quantum overclocking
The quantum computer is still ranking pretty high up there on the vaporware charts, somewhere between Duke Nukem Forever and a Steorn in-home power generator. Eventually we'll get there, and theoretical physicists at the University of Bristol are helping with a quantum cooling system. It is effectively a means for two qubits to cool a third, with the outer two cooled by lasers and absorbing energy from the third, which is heated to its excited state. Unsurprisingly this is all rather theoretical at this point, but the team does plan to actually build such a quantum refrigerator in the not too distant future. Then, we figure, they'll host the first quantum kegger.
German physicists working on quantum interface between light and atoms
Physicists at Johannes Gutenberg University in Germany are developing something which they call the Mainz interface, and which could eventually lead to a quantum computer -- a whole new way of communicating information. For now, though the Mainz interface is seeking to use laser light traveling through a tapered glass fiber, trapping cesium atoms at the thin center. This center of the fiber is actually thinner than the wavelength of light, meaning that it protrudes into the space surrounding the fiber, "coupling" with the atoms trapped there. Sounds pretty complicated, right? Well, it is, but the researchers are moving along toward the goal of quantum computing. We'll keep you updated on their progress.
