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Category: quantum physics

Dmitry Fedyanin from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and Mario Agio from the University of Siegen and LENS have predicted that artificial defects in the crystal lattice of diamond can be turned into ultrabright and extremely efficient electrically driven quantum emitters. Their work, published in New Journal of Physics, demonstrates the potential for a number of technological breakthroughs, including the development of quantum computers and secure communication lines that operate at room temperature.

The research conducted by Dmitry Fedyanin and Mario Agio is focused on the development of electrically driven single-photon sources—devices that emit when an electrical current is applied. In other words, using such devices, one can generate a photon “on demand” by simply applying a small voltage across the devices. The probability of an output of zero photons is vanishingly low and generation of two or more photons simultaneously is fundamentally impossible.

Until recently, it was thought that quantum dots (nanoscale semiconductor particles) are the most promising candidates for true single-photon sources. However, they operate only at very low temperatures, which is their main drawback – mass application would not be possible if a device has to be cooled with liquid nitrogen or even colder liquid helium, or using refrigeration units, which are even more expensive and power-hungry. At the same time, certain point defects in the crystal lattice of diamond, which occur when foreign atoms (such as silicon or nitrogen) enter the diamond accidentally or through targeted implantation, can efficiently emit single photons at room temperature. However, this has only been achieved by optical excitation of these defects using external high-power lasers. This method is ideal for research in scientific laboratories, but it is very inefficient in practical devices.

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Quantum computers are largely hypothetical devices that could perform some calculations much more rapidly than conventional computers can. Instead of the bits of classical computation, which can represent 0 or 1, quantum computers consist of quantum bits, or qubits, which can, in some sense, represent 0 and 1 simultaneously.

Although quantum systems with as many as 12 have been demonstrated in the lab, building quantum computers complex enough to perform useful computations will require miniaturizing qubit technology, much the way the miniaturization of transistors enabled modern computers.

Trapped ions are probably the most widely studied qubit technology, but they’ve historically required a large and complex hardware apparatus. In today’s Nature Nanotechnology, researchers from MIT and MIT Lincoln Laboratory report an important step toward practical quantum computers, with a paper describing a prototype chip that can trap ions in an electric field and, with built-in optics, direct toward each of them.

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Not so long ago we had to assume that we’ll never be able to travel faster than light. This was based on scientists’ sensible belief that we can travel through space but cannot change the nature of space itself. Then the idea of ‘Warp Drive’ came along to challenge and seemingly change all of the barriers that Einstein’s theory identified. Warp Drive is all about squashing and stretching space — a pretty ambitious task to begin with. So maybe it’s time again to have a look at how far we’ve already come or how close we are to seeing a real warp drive built by humans.

In May 1994, theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre finally presented his proposal of “The Warp Drive: Hyper-fast travel within general relativity” in a scientific journal called Classical and Quantum Gravity.

He indeed was inspired by Star Trek and its creator Gene Roddenberry, who famously coined the expression “Warp Drive” to explain the inexplicable propulsion of the Starship Enterprise as prodigious speed was just necessary to enable his fictional space travelers to leap from star to star on their trek.

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In a development that could greatly help the study of quantum phenomena, scientists have created a theoretical model for a new form of light that combines the properties of photons and electrons. If turned into reality, the new light form could also be used to make electrical circuits which at present use electrons for conduction.

Scientists from Imperial College London published a study in the journal Nature Communications on Friday that shows “it is possible to create a new form of light by binding light to a single electron, combining the properties of both,” according to a statement issued by the college.

Light, which is made up of photons, usually interacts with a large number of electrons on the surface of whatever material it comes in contact with. For the study, researchers from Imperial used “a recently discovered class of materials known as topological inhibitors.” Combining that with “theoretical physics to model the behavior of light,” they found that light could interact with only one electron on the surface.

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Quantum computing remains mysterious and elusive to many, but USC Viterbi School of Engineering researchers might have taken us one step closer to bring such super-powered devices to practical reality. The USC Viterbi School of Engineering and Information Sciences Institute is home to the USC-Lockheed Martin Quantum Computing Center (QCC), a super-cooled, magnetically shielded facility specially built to house the first commercially available quantum optimization processors — devices so advanced that there are currently only two in use outside the Canadian company D-Wave Systems Inc., where they were built: The first one went to USC and Lockheed Martin, and the second to NASA and Google.

Quantum computers encode data in quantum bits, or “qubits,” which have the capability of representing the two digits of one and zero at the same time — as opposed to traditional bits, which can encode distinctly either a one or a zero. This property, called superposition, along with the ability of quantum states to “interfere” (cancel or reinforce each other like waves in a pond) and “tunnel” through energy barriers, is what may one day allow quantum processors to ultimately perform optimization calculations much faster than is possible using traditional processors. Optimization problems can take many forms, and quantum processors have been theorized to be useful for a variety of machine learning and big data problems like stock portfolio optimization, image recognition and classification, and detecting anomalies. Yet, exactly because of the exotic way in which quantum computers process information, they are highly sensitive to errors of different kinds.

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I have reported on this threat for a very long time as we see more BMI technology advance. However, one are where things could drastically reduce hacking and breeches is the migration to a Quantum based net and infrastructure.

Cyberthieves might be mining personal information from your brainwaves at this very moment.

And although this may sound like a plot from a science fiction film, it is a growing concern among researchers who have demanded officials implement a privacy and security framework to block hackers from reading our neural signals.

Experts at the University of Washington have revealed how hackerscould inserting images into dodgy apps and recording our brain’s unintentional reaction using brain-computer interfaces.

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Magine a future in which hyper-efficient solar panels provide renewable sources of energy, improved water filters quickly remove toxins from drinking water, and the air is scrubbed clean of pollution and greenhouse gases. That could become a reality with the right molecules and materials.

Scientists from Harvard and Google have taken a major step toward making the search for those molecules easier, demonstrating for the first time that a quantum computer could be used to model the electron interactions in a complex molecule. The work is described in a new paper published in the journal Physical Review X by Professor Alán Aspuru-Guzik from the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology and several co-authors.

“There are a number of applications that a quantum computer would be useful for: cryptography, machine learning, and certain number-theory problems,” Aspuru-Guzik said. “But one that has always been mentioned, even from the first conceptions of a quantum computer, was to use it to simulate matter. In this case, we use it to simulate chemistry.”

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