New study brings quantum computing one step closer

LONDON - A team of researchers from the University of Oxford, UK, has come one step closer to building a solid-state quantum computer.

The team successfully entangled 10 billion pairs of quantum bits (or qubits) simultaneously in a highly purified crystal of silicon.

Theoretical studies have shown that quantum computers could solve problems that would take a classical computer an infinite amount of time.

To create a quantum computer, the team had to create more than 1 million such qubits and entangling them together, so that the states of any one qubit are intrinsically linked with the states of others.

The team’s next step will be to entangle the pairs of qubits with one another, forming a massive-scale quantum computer.

By working with billions of qubits at once, “we’re trying to hopscotch the middle ground that is holding up a lot of groups”, Nature quoted Stephanie Simmons as saying.

John Morton, the supervisor, cautioned that the type of silicon used the experiment was not standard commercial-grade but an extra-pure crystal of the isotope silicon-28, from which atoms of silicon-29 have been removed.

Silicon-29 is magnetic and would interfere with the entanglement procedure.

According to Jeremy O’Brien, a quantum-computing specialist at the University of Bristol, UK, the work is impressive but what’s needed really is the ability to do the additional nanofabrication to put electrodes on the silicon chip.

This will address each individual nucleus and electron pair, a technology that will be needed to get more than two spins entangled together in silicon. (ANI)