Quantum computing inbound

[pandemonium]

Harvard researchers have succeeded in creating quantum switches that can be turned on and off using a single photon, a technological achievement that could pave the way for creating highly secure quantum networks.

The chips use nanophotonic technology — essentially the ability to create “wiring” that can channel and control the pathway of light — to build optical circuits that can then be connected to fiber optic cables.

After placing the optical circuits in a vacuum chamber, researchers used “optical tweezers” — precisely focused lasers — to capture a single atom and cool it to a fraction above absolute zero. They then move the atom to within a few hundred nanometers of the chip.

“For this to work, the atom switch must be prepared in this special superposition state,” Lukin explained. “This superposition state is extremely fragile — so fragile that when a single photon hits it, it actually changes its phase. That change of phase is what allows it to act like a valve, and be turned on or off.”

I'm guessing the apparatus size will be the initial limiting factor for any sort of widespread implementation at this point.

Secure networking will be the primary beneficial aspect of this breakthrough I think:

Where it will be used, he said, is in creating fiber-optical networks that use quantum cryptography, a method for encrypting communications using the laws of quantum mechanics to allow for perfectly secure information exchanges. Such systems make it impossible to intercept and read messages sent over a network, because the very act of measuring a quantum object changes it, leaving behind telltale signs of the spying.

 

[Mand]

It's not so much apparatus size, but rather the whole "vacuum chamber and cooling to fraction above absolute zero and moving the atom to within a few hundred nanometers of the chip" thing. It's size, cost, complexity, and difficulty to implement.

People jump right from the physics paper to the real world, and gloss over the massive engineering effort that would have to take place between the two.

Optical computing is a big deal, and will be here before quantum. The big story here is the nanophotonics, not the interaction with a qubit. Nanophotonic optical computing will bring real benefits long before quantum ever leaves a university research lab.

 

[pandemonium]

It's not so much apparatus size, but rather the whole "vacuum chamber and cooling to fraction above absolute zero and moving the atom to within a few hundred nanometers of the chip" thing. It's size, cost, complexity, and difficulty to implement.

Which would be a rather large apparatus to house all of said things, defeating the purpose of quantum computing. (See the irony?)

People jump right from the physics paper to the real world, and gloss over the massive engineering effort that would have to take place between the two.

No one's jumping to that conclusion. I didn't say it'd be arriving tomorrow and there wouldn't be significant challenges to overcome. It's on the horizon, and it's pretty amazing. This isn't /Politics and News, it's Highly Technical. Discuss with that in mind.