Chilly chip achieves important quantum computing advance
University of California Santa Barbara Physics professor John Martinis is looking to trap sunshine in a bottle; or photons in a cavity, more precisely. His former postdoctoral fellow Yi Yin -- now a professor at Zhejiang University in the city of Hangzhou, China -- has just published a work in the journal Phys. Rev. Letters detailing how her team used tiny superconducting structures to selectively trap and release photons.
Ms. Yin comments, "As one crucial step of achieving controllable quantum devices, we have developed an unprecedented level of manipulating light on a superconducting chip. In our experiment, we caught and released photons in and from a superconducting cavity by incorporating a superconducting switch. By controlling the switch on and off, we were able to open and close a door between the confined cavity and the road where photons can transmit. The on/off speed should be fast enough with a tuning time much shorter than the photon lifetime of the cavity."
The study uses a two-atom construct for the "qubit" (quantum bit) that stores the photon state information in the Fabry-Perot cavity. The team uses a switchable mirror to act like a shutter, controlling the waveform of the released photons.
The UCSB superconducting quantum chip was chilled to three-hundreths of a degree Kelvin.
There were some rather significant technical hurdles that are required to achieve the team's impressive results. The approximately 1 sq. inch chip had to be chilled to -273.12 ºC -- or about two-hundredths of a degree Kelvin above absolute zero.
The next step is to tune the device to transfer controlled-state photons between two cavities. That will be a critical step towards quantum memory or a cavity-based quantum computing device.
Sources: UCSB, Phys. Rev. Letters
"This is from the DailyTech.com. It's a science website." -- Rush Limbaugh
|
Most Popular ArticlesHigh School Student Creates Storage Device that Can Charge in 20 Seconds
May 20, 2013, 6:51 AM
Seawater Cooling Saves Data Center Big Bucks, Energy, Despite Jellyfish Issues
May 17, 2013, 3:23 PM
Newegg Legal Chief: "We don't Feed the Trolls"; Defeats Bell Lab Shell Comp.
May 17, 2013, 10:11 AM
Former Intel CEO Regrets Passing Up on iPhone Gravy Train
May 17, 2013, 11:46 AM
NASA Awards $125,000 Grant for 3D Printed Food on Long-Term Space Travels
May 21, 2013, 1:32 PM
|
