Quantum Tech

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.

The same techniques used to train self-driving cars and chess-playing computers are now helping physicists explore the complexities of the quantum world. For the first time, physicists have demonstrated that machine learning can reconstruct a quantum system based on relatively few experimental measurements. This method will allow scientists to thoroughly probe systems of particles exponentially faster than conventional, brute-force techniques.

Storing information in a quantum memory system is a difficult challenge, as the data is usually quickly lost. At TU Wien, ultra-long storage times have now been achieved using tiny diamonds. With quantum particles, information can be stored and manipulated – this is the basis of many very promising technologies, such as extremely sensitive quantum sensors, quantum communication or even quantum computers.

​With their insensitivity to decoherence what are known as Majorana particles could become stable building blocks of a quantum computer. The problem is that they only occur under very special circumstances. Now researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have succeeded in manufacturing a component that is able to host the sought-after particles. ​Researchers throughout the world are struggling to build a quantum computer.