Lifeboat Foundation

A new fusion of materials, each with special electrical properties, has all the components required for a unique type of superconductivity that could provide the basis for more robust quantum computing. The new combination of materials, created by a team led by researchers at Penn State, could also provide a platform to explore physical behaviors similar to those of mysterious, theoretical particles known as chiral Majoranas, which could be another promising component for quantum computing.

The new study appears in the journal Science. The work describes how the researchers combined the two magnetic materials in what they called a critical step toward realizing the emergent interfacial superconductivity, which they are currently working toward.

Superconductors—materials with no electrical resistance —are widely used in digital circuits, the powerful magnets in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and particle accelerators, and other technology where maximizing the flow of electricity is crucial.

By connecting several less-advanced chips into one, Chinese companies could circumvent the sanctions set by the US government.

While combing through the human genome in 2007, computational geneticist Pardis Sabeti made a discovery that would transform her research career. As a then-postdoctoral fellow at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Sabeti discovered potential evidence that some unknown mutation in a gene called LARGE1 had a beneficial effect in the Nigerian population.

Other scientists had discovered that this gene was critical for the Lassa virus to enter cells. Sabeti wondered whether a mutation in LARGE1 might prevent Lassa fever—an infection that is caused by the Lassa virus, is endemic in West Africa, and can be deadly in some people while only mild in others.

To find out, Sabeti decided later in 2007, as a new faculty member at Harvard University, that one of the first projects her new lab at the Broad would take on would be a genome-wide association study (GWAS) of Lassa susceptibility. She reached out to her collaborator Christian Happi, now the Director of the African Center of Excellence for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID) at Redeemer’s University in Nigeria, and together they launched the study.

Qubits are the building block for quantum technology, and finding or building qubits that are stable and easily manipulated is one of the central goals of quantum technology research. Scientists have found that an atom of erbium—a rare-earth metal sometimes used in lasers or to color glass—can be a very effective qubit.

To make erbium qubits, erbium atoms are placed in “host materials,” where the erbium atoms replace some of the material’s original atoms. Two research groups—one at quantum startup memQ, a Chicago Quantum Exchange corporate partner, and one at the US Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, a CQE member—have used different host materials for erbium to advance quantum technology, demonstrating the versatility of this kind of qubit and highlighting the importance of materials science to quantum computing and quantum communication.

The two projects address challenges that quantum computing researchers have been trying to solve: engineering multi-qubit devices and extending the amount of time qubits can hold information.

The Quantum Insider (TQI) is the leading online resource dedicated exclusively to Quantum Computing.

Making a strange state of matter called a time crystal inside a quantum computer helped researchers stabilise a fragile quantum state inspired by Schrödinger’s cat.

By Karmela Padavic-Callaghan

To show one of the advantages of being a cyborg, I typed my old prescription into ZEISS Optical Inserts which are for use with the Apple Vision Pro and it said “We are really sorry, but your prescription values go beyond the available range.”

But now that I’m a cyborg with artificial lenses, any optical inserts that I might need are very common and available.

Oh, I experimented a little and it looks like they can’t make lenses for −9.75 diopters or worse. My left-eye used to be −17.25!

Continue reading “Prescription guide” »

Hong-Ou-Mandel interference of single-#photon-level pulses stored in independent room-temperature #quantum #memories Quantum #repeater #networks require independent absorptive quantum memories capable of #storing and #retrieving indistinguishable photons to perform high-repetition entanglement…

Research with quantum computing and quantum networks is taking place around the world in the hopes of developing a quantum internet in the future. A quantum internet would be a network of quantum computers, sensors, and communication devices that will create, process, and transmit quantum states and entanglement and is anticipated to enhance society’s internet system and provide certain services and securities that the current internet does not have.

A team of Stony Brook University physicists and their collaborators have taken a significant step toward the building of a quantum internet testbed by demonstrating a foundational quantum network measurement that employs room-temperature quantum memories. Their findings are described in a paper published in npj Quantum Information.

Continue reading “Research team takes a fundamental step toward a functioning quantum internet” »

Despite the Harvard 48 logical #qubits paper is perhaps the biggest leap in #quantum technologies, still the final circuit is classically simulable.

Politics makes strange bedfellows, apparently so does quantum benchmarking.

In a surprising development, IBM Quantum and IonQ researchers teamed up to reveal an alternative classical simulation algorithm for an impressive error correction study conducted by a Harvard and QuEra team and published recently in Nature. IBM is a leader in superconducting quantum computers, while IonQ is noted as a pioneer in trapped ion devices.

Continue reading “IBM and IonQ Researchers Design Classical Algorithm to Tackle Recent Harvard-Led Study’s Computational Task” »