Quantum Computing has tremendous potential to change the world of computing forever but there are significant challenges that need to be addressed. One of the challenges is that in order to function as a superconductor the system has to be kept between 0.01 to 0.015 Kelvin or -273.14°C. As you can imagine this is hard to do and obviously impractical for consumer / commercial devices.
We are a step closer to solving this problem as Researchers from Louisiana State University have developed a material that can demonstrate quantum weirdness at room temperature. This material is basically a thin layer of gold on a glass chip and is carved with microscopic patterns that act like artificial atoms which carry Quantum states. The crystal chip can distinguish them and move them from one point to another without requiring cryogenic cooling. Which opens the door to practical quantum technologies.
Crucial to the new material’s room-temperature operation is the way it shifts the focus from electrons and atoms to photons (particles of light). This overcomes the usual atomic-level disruption that heat brings with it. The material is what’s known as a plasmonic metacrystal: ‘Plasmonic’ because the light traveling over it makes ripples of electrons known as plasmons, and ‘metacrystal’ because it’s an artificially created crystal. The tiny slit patterns etched into the material act as artificial atoms (meta-atoms), which dictate how different photon groups pass through (the quantum behavior).
“By engineering the distribution of meta-atoms in the plasmonic metacrystal, we can systematically dictate which quantum statistics are allowed to pass through the structure,” says physicist Riley Dawkins. “So, our crystal essentially acts as a statistical filter on quantum states.” That means as light enters the chip and travels across the gold surface, it’s manipulated by the meta-atoms — and by tweaking the size, shape, and spacing of the slits, different end results can be produced at the quantum level. In practice, this means that certain quantum states of light can be transported with less disruption.
The findings have been published in Nature Journal earlier this month.
Source: Slashdot: LSU Physicists Create First Room-Temperature Quantum Material
– Suramya