Quantum Computers

Today's powerful computers that run on microscopic transistor chips won't begin to match the speed of a totally different kind of computer which may be available 50 years from now, thanks to researchers at The University of Arizona in Tucson. We all know that information technology has been driving our economic engine over the past decade or two. But for that to continue, a new paradigm for information processing will be needed by the middle of the next century. It looks like quantum information may be a candidate, there are no undamental barriers in the way. There is no basic fundamental law that says this cannot be done. Still, it's going to be very hard.



Quantum computing has potential to shatter the entire concept of binary computing, the use of zero's and one's, "on" and "off," to represent information digitally. Researchers at the University of New Mexico propose a new concept for how individual atoms might be controlled at the very quantum level for computers for the future. The researchers at the Optical Sciences Center are now about to begin experiments to test their theory that neutral or chargeless atoms, trapped like individual eggs in an egg carton by a lattice created by interfering laser beams and super cooled to the point of zero motion, will work for quantum computing.



Researchers have succeeded in cooling light trapped atoms to the zero point of motion, a pure vibrational state that is the crucial initialisation step to using atoms as quantum information bits. The pure quantum state would be the logical zero for a quantum mechanical computer. The scientists' success at cooling atoms was no small achievement. Atoms in this super cooled state are colder than liquid helium by roughly the same factor that liquid helium is colder than the center of the sun.



The researchers have reported that their scheme for stacking atom filled optical lattices so the neutral atoms will sufficiently interact to make quantum logic operations possible. If the scheme works, the big advantage is that atoms can be easily accessible for laser manipulation but remain isolated from the surrounding environment. Random forces from the outside world that act on the tiny quantum bits is perhaps the greatest problem confronting researchers trying to build a real quantum computer.