In a radically new design and a giant leap towards what the computers of the future could look like , a team of scientists from the University of New South Wales (Australia) in collaboration with experts from Purdue University (USA) .) has developed a new quantum computing architecture based on a new concept of the “qubit” (quantum bit) that will lead to the large-scale manufacture of quantum chips incredibly cheaper and easier than we imagined.
The new qubit design is based on a ‘flip-flop’ (or rocker) system that works without the need to place the atoms in a very strict position, as is the case with other chips. Thus, this innovative design enables qubits to be entangled at distances of up to hundreds of nanometers.
This project was conceived by a team led by Andrea Morello, Manager of the Center for Quantum Computing and Communication Technology (CQC2T) in Sydney.
“It’s a brilliant design, and like many conceptual leaps, it’s surprising that no one had thought of it before,” says Morello.
“ What the team has invented is a new way to define a spin qubit that uses both the electron and the nucleus of the atom , which is crucial for controlling electrical signals rather than magnetic signals that are significantly easier to distribute and locate inside an electronic chip “, explains Guilherme Tosi, leader of the study.
Thanks to this new formula, scientists have managed to circumvent one of the requirements that quantum computers must present: the problem of size. And it is that this design allows quantum entanglement ( if the qubits are too close or too far, entanglement does not occur ) and, therefore, the possibility of accumulating thousands or even millions of qubits in a reduced space and coupling them to all the control systems that are essential. And all in a few nanometers of space.
However this tilting design is for now that, a design. Current technology is not capable of achieving this – existing quantum computers, such as Google or IBM use a lot of space among other things – but, of course, it opens the possibility of being able to increase the maximum distances that can exist between these quantum bits without so they lose quantum entanglement , which is what makes quantum computing so special.
“If we want to make a matrix of thousands or millions of qubits, it means that all the control lines, the control electronics and the reading devices also have to be made at that nano scale, and with that tone and that density. This new concept suggests another way “, clarifies Morello.
According to the scientists, they have some preliminary experimental data suggesting that it is entirely feasible, so “we are working to fully prove it.”
The space race of the 21st century
This is how the project for the construction of a quantum computer has been called. An equally difficult and ambitious challenge that will offer revolutionary tools to carry out impossible calculations in extraordinary ways and with applications for all sectors. Its speed and power lie in the fact that quantum systems can host multiple “superpositions” of different initial states within quantum entanglement.
The Australian University of New South Wales team has reached an $ 83 million agreement between it, the telecommunications giant Telstra, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the governments of Australia and New South Wales to develop, By 2022, a 10-qubit silicon quantum integrated circuit.
Referencia: Guilherme Tosi, Fahd A. Mohiyaddin, Vivien Schmitt, Stefanie Tenberg, Rajib Rahman, Gerhard Klimeck & Andrea Morello . Silicon quantum processor with robust long-distance qubit couplings, Nature Communications (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00378-x
Image credit: Tony Melov / UNSW
