Quantum Memory to Benefit from Vibrations
On engadget.com, Jon Fingas wrote a column about guitar strings and quantum computers sharing commonality.
Quantum computers need memory to perform tasks, but it’s hard to create that memory when it only takes nearby vibrating atoms to lose all their data. Scientists may have a solution: tune diamonds like a guitar string. They’ve created a quantum memory system in which micron-wide diamond crystal strings house impurities better suited to data-storing electrons. If the diamond is subjected to voltage, it will stretch and boost the frequencies electrons are sensitive to, much like tightening a guitar string to change its pitch. It’ll be harder to disturb the data, in other words.
So it’s not actually using the actual diamond guitar strings, but they are using the physics of how the string vibrates.
The technology lets electrons hold data for “hundreds” of nanoseconds versus “tens.” That’s a tremendous amount of time at a quantum level⎯and it could be integral to processing data in quantum computing systems.
Harvard is patenting the technology and is “exploring” opportunities to turn it into a practical product.
read more at engadget.com
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