This article was viewed using a digital device that uses the bit as its primary unit of information. It can be either 0 or 1. Scientists around the globe are working to create a new type of computer that uses quantum bits or qubits. These qubits can simultaneously be 0 or 1 and could solve complex problems better than any supercomputers.
A team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy’s ArgonneNational Laboratory has announced the creation of a qubit platform. This platform is being developed into future quantum computers in close collaboration with FAMU FSU College of Engineering Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Wei Guo. Their research is published in the journal Nature.
There are many types of qubits, but the team chose one electron. A simple light filament, such as one you would find in a toy for children, can quickly produce an unlimited supply of electrons by heating it up.
Qubits have one important property: they can remain in simultaneous 0 and 1 states for long periods of time. This is called their “coherence time”. The limit is determined by how qubits interact to their environment. The coherence time can be significantly reduced by defects in the qubit system.
The team decided to trap the electron on a pure, solid neon surface in vacuum. Neon is one the six inert elements. This means that it doesn’t react with other elements.
Dafei Jin (Argonne scientist, principal investigator on the project) said that solid neon is inert and can be used in a vacuum to host any qubits and prevent them from being disturbed.
The team used a chip-scale superconducting resonance resonator, which is a mini microwave oven, to manipulate the trapped electrons. This allowed them to store and read information from the qubit.
In the past, liquid helium was used to hold electrons in research. Although the material was simple to create, vibrations from the liquid-free surface could cause electron state disruptions that could compromise the performance and integrity of the qubit.
Solid neon is a material that has few defects and doesn’t vibrate as much like liquid helium. The team built their platform and performed real-time qubit operations with microwave photons to trap an electron. They also characterized its quantum properties. These tests showed that solid neon created a stable environment for the electron, with low electric noise to disturb it. The most important thing was that the qubit achieved coherence times within the quantum state comparable to other state-of the-art qubits.
“Quantum computers could prove to be an innovative tool for performing calculations that are virtually impossible for classical computers,” stated Guo, co-author of the paper. We believe we have made a significant breakthrough in the quest to make qubits that will help this technology realize its potential.
Scientists created the qubit by freezing neon gases to a solid at low temperatures, then spraying electrons from a lightbulb onto the solid and trapping one electron.
Quantum computing promises to be a breakthrough technology that can solve certain problems faster than traditional computers. The term entanglement is a combination of long coherence times and the ability for multiple qubits (or more) to link together. Quantum computers could thus find solutions to problems that classical computers would take many years to solve.
Imagine a situation where researchers need to determine the lowest energy form of a protein composed of many amino acids. These amino acids can be folded in trillions of different ways than any classical computer can handle. Quantum computing allows one to use entangled qubits in order to create a superposition all folding configurations. This gives the ability to examine all possible answers simultaneously and solve the problem faster.