Future of Engineering
Monday, April 7, 2008
Bose–Einstein Condensate Could Lead to Quantum Computing
In an ultrahigh-vacuum chamber at Swinburne University of Technology, a million ultracold rubidium-87 atoms hover just beneath the surface of a silicon chip coated with a thin magneto-optical film.
Tailored to create a shaped, perpendicular magnetic field, the magnetic film confines and shepherds the rubidium atoms on the chip, in much the same way as electrons are guided along conducting wires on an electronic microchip.
Cooled to a temperature of a few billionths of a degree Kelvin, just above absolute zero (minus 273˚C), and confined by a magnetic microtrap on the chip, the ultracold atoms fall into the lowest energy state of the trap and no longer jostle for room – they exhibit almost no random thermal motion.
The atoms condense to a state where they behave as a single super-atom of rubidium-87 and exhibit coherent, wave-like properties – rather like the coherent light from a laser. For several seconds, the chip holds the atoms in an exotic, fifth state of matter called a Bose–Einstein condensate.
If all this sounds ‘sci-fi’ it’s because in many ways it is. Bose–Einstein condensate is a new frontier whose boundaries have yet to be measured, but are more than likely to take humankind to new realms of technological and industrial capability.
Just as the first lasers mystified scientists as to their possible applications, so too now with Bose–Einstein condensate. In theory, they could at the very least be the basis for quantum computing – that is, computers able to use atoms to store data and complete in seconds computations that would take today’s most powerful supercomputers years.
More from here
Tailored to create a shaped, perpendicular magnetic field, the magnetic film confines and shepherds the rubidium atoms on the chip, in much the same way as electrons are guided along conducting wires on an electronic microchip.
Cooled to a temperature of a few billionths of a degree Kelvin, just above absolute zero (minus 273˚C), and confined by a magnetic microtrap on the chip, the ultracold atoms fall into the lowest energy state of the trap and no longer jostle for room – they exhibit almost no random thermal motion.
The atoms condense to a state where they behave as a single super-atom of rubidium-87 and exhibit coherent, wave-like properties – rather like the coherent light from a laser. For several seconds, the chip holds the atoms in an exotic, fifth state of matter called a Bose–Einstein condensate.
If all this sounds ‘sci-fi’ it’s because in many ways it is. Bose–Einstein condensate is a new frontier whose boundaries have yet to be measured, but are more than likely to take humankind to new realms of technological and industrial capability.
Just as the first lasers mystified scientists as to their possible applications, so too now with Bose–Einstein condensate. In theory, they could at the very least be the basis for quantum computing – that is, computers able to use atoms to store data and complete in seconds computations that would take today’s most powerful supercomputers years.
More from here
Labels: Computer-Science, Physics
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