The semiconductor industry long has focused its attention on the mass creation of nanostructurally perfect transistors. Recent research in the new field of semiconductor spintronics suggests that the exploitation of imperfections may hold the key to building a variety of powerful new quantum technologies. This graphic depicts one of these subatomic imperfections at lower center.
This graphic shows the subatomic workings of a quantum memory built inside a diamond. Orbiting single electrons (green), which hold computational information, transfer their quantum mechanical states to individual subatomic nuclear memory spins in the atomic cores (blue).
Future information-transmission technologies for applications including encryption and advanced computation may depend on the transfer of quantum-mechanical states of electronics and atomic nuclei, as illustrated here. This experimental technology would be based on the spins of electrons and communicated by photons (light particles).