Super fast quantum computers one step closer

Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have made an significant development in electrically controlling quantum states of electrons, a step that could help in the development of quantum computing, and lead to first super computers. What the researchers from Santa Barbara done was that they demonstrated the ability to electrically manipulate, at gigahertz rates, the quantum states of electrons trapped on individual defects in diamond crystals.

So what this has to do with computers? Well these guys believe that this is an important step to development of quantum computers that could use electron spins to perform computations at unprecedented speed.

For their experiment, the scientists used electromagnetic waveguides on diamond-based chips, and with it they were able to generate magnetic fields large and powerful enough to change the quantum state of an atomic-scale defect in less than one billionth of a second.

Lead author Greg Fuchs, a postdoctoral researcher at UCSB, said: "We set out to see if there is a practical limit to how fast we can manipulate these quantum states in diamond, and eventually, we reached the point where the standard assumptions of magnetic resonance no longer hold, but to our surprise we found that we actually gained an increase in operation speed by breaking the conventional assumptions".

It is pretty amazing that researchers can already electrically control the quantum state of just a few atoms at gigahertz rates, which ares speeds speeds similar to ones we have at our computer at home. Of course scientists still have to learn lot of things about controlling the quantum systems but at least they are going in the right direction, and who knows with little luck we may soon witness the first quantum supercomputer.

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Science facts about quantum mechanics and quantum particles

Quantum mechanics is basically set of different principles that describes the physical reality of the matter at atomic and subatomic level. Its origin is quantum theory that began with the study of the interactions of matter and radiation in the early years of the 20th century. Quantum theory is all about the exploring the nature of the matter by exploring its tiniest pieces (subatomic level).

Planck's constant is very important to quantum theory and quantum mechanics in general. It states that the energy of each quantum is equal to the frequency of the radiation multiplied by the universal constant: E=f*h, where h is 6.63 * 10E-34 Js.

Quantum mechanics can be referred to as the mathematical description of physical reality of the matter, like almost any other scientific model. According to quantum mechanics the most complete description we can make of a system is its wavefunction, which is mathematically speaking just a number varying between time and place.

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