Stevens Institute of Technology Edges Closer to Room-temperature Quantum Chip Without Silicon
Stevens Team Closes In On “Holy Grail” of Room Temperature Quantum Computing Chips
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+ Now, researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have coaxed photons into interacting with one another with unprecedented efficiency — a key advance toward realizing long-awaited quantum optics technologies for computing, communication and remote sensing.
“We’re pushing the boundaries of physics and optical engineering in order to bring quantum and all-optical signal processing closer to reality,” said Huang.
+ The team, led by Yuping Huang, an associate professor of physics and director of the Center for Quantum Science and Engineering, brings us closer to that goal with a nano-scale chip that facilitates photon interactions with much higher efficiency than any previous system. The new method, reported as a memorandum in the Sept. 18 issue of Optica, works at very low energy levels, suggesting that it could be optimized to work at the level of individual photons — the holy grail for room-temperature quantum computing and secure quantum communication.
+ Chen explained that to both etch the racetrack on the chip and tailor the way photons move around it, requires dozens of delicate nanofabrication steps, each requiring nanometer precision. “To the best of our knowledge, we’re among the first groups to master all of these nanofabrication steps to build this system — that’s the reason we could get this result first.”
+ The Stevens team say they’re closing in on a system capable of generating interactions at the single-photon level reliably, a breakthrough that would allow the creation of many powerful quantum computing components such as photonics logic gates and entanglement sources, which along a circuit, can canvass multiple solutions to the same problem simultaneously, conceivably allowing calculations that could take years to be solved in seconds.
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