The imperfect world of quantum computing

Scientists from Australia have developed a technique for controlling an intrinsic property of quantum bits, opening new opportunities in computing, according to a study published in the journal Physical Review Letters.

When single electrons are confined into nanoscale areas, they stop behaving like electrons in the bulk of a solid and instead exhibit the quantum mechanical behaviour of single electrons in an atom, making them promising candidates for quantum bits, or ‘qubits’, used for storing and manipulating information in quantum computers.

By exploiting an imperfection, known as a single nitrogen-vacancy centre, in a crystal of diamond, researchers from the University of Melbourne in Australia used a phenomenon called environmentally mediated resonance to harness the magnetic fields of nearby electrons to control the spin or of the qubit.

The finding could be used in applications from quantum information processing to nanoscale sensing.

This article was first published by Springer Nature. Read the original article here.