Quantum Tech

IDTechEx Research will focus on some of the key frontiers of short-, medium-, and long-term change in quantum dot (QDs) films. In particular, we will argue that the transition away from Cd based QDs will soon be complete; we will show how QD material improvements are translating into total cost reductions and how that is reshaping the market’s pricing strategies; and finally we will consider whether film type QDs can continue their supreme reign, or whether relentless innovation soon render them obsolete.

Researchers have created the fastest man-made rotor in the world, which they believe will help them study quantum mechanics. At more than 60 billion revolutions per minute, this machine is more than 100,000 times faster than a high-speed dental drill. The findings were published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

In the new quantum information technologies, fragile quantum states have to be transferred between distant quantum bits. Researchers at ETH have now realised such a quantum transmission between two solid-state qubits at the push of a button. Data transmission is the backbone of the modern information society, on both the large and small scale. On the internet, data are exchanged between computers all over the world, most often using fibre optic cables.

Could quantum mechanics hold the key to the development of superfast, next-generation communication? A Marie Curie-funded project has made important steps towards answering this question. The EU-funded SIPHON project successfully created on-demand single photons and demonstrated that these particles can outperform natural atoms in experiments related to a specific quantum phenomenon. This achievement could have important implications in the pioneering world of quantum communication.

CEA-Leti has announced a breakthrough towards large-scale fabrication of quantum bits, or qubits, the elementary bricks of future quantum processors. They demonstrated on a 300 mm pre-industrial platform a new level of isotopic purification in a film deposited by chemical vapor deposition (CVD). This enables creating qubits in thin layers of silicon using a very high purity silicon isotope, 28Si, which produces a crystalline quality comparable to thin films usually made of natural silicon.

Coming together, quantum technology experts and researchers are investigating how security systems based on the randomness of light can help protect connected and autonomous vehicles (CAVs) from cyber-attacks. There are fears that CAVS, which include driverless cars and vehicles that have internet connectivity, could be hijacked by criminals with equipment as basic as publicly available software and a laptop computer.

Scientists at Amherst College and Aalto University have created, for the first time, a 3D skyrmion in a quantum gas. The skyrmion was predicted theoretically over 40 years ago, but only now has it been observed experimentally. In an extremely sparse and cold quantum gas, the physicists have created knots made of the magnetic moments, or spins, of the constituent atoms. The knots exhibit many of the characteristics of ball lightning, which some scientists believe to consist of tangled streams of electric currents.

Plants can convert sunlight into chemical energy with a high degree of efficiency. How this is achieved is still not entirely clear. ETH physicists have now constructed a quantum physical model that aims to answer this question. Chlorophyll is the crucial molecule. Thanks to this green pigment, plants are able to convert sunlight directly into chemical energy. The fact that the ATP molecule is created within the plant cells using light can now be read in any good biology textbook.

Researchers at Oxford University have set a new speed record for the ‘logic gates’ that form the building blocks of quantum computing – a technology that could transform the way we process information. Quantum computers, which function according to the laws of quantum physics, have the potential to dwarf the processing power of today’s classical computers.

An international collaboration led by ETH physicists has used machine learning to teach a computer how to predict the outcomes of quantum experiments. The results could prove to be essential for testing future quantum computers. Physics students spend many years learning to master the often counterintuitive laws and effects of quantum mechanics.