Feature Channels: Quantum Mechanics

• share
• favorite_border

Research drawing on the quantum “anti-butterfly effect” solves a longstanding experimental problem in physics and establishes a method for benchmarking the performance of quantum computers.

• share
• favorite_border

Quantum clocks are shrinking, thanks to new technologies developed at the University of Birmingham-led UK Quantum Technology Hub Sensors and Timing.

• share
• favorite_border

In work applicable to super-fast quantum computing and quantum optics, undergraduate research by a recent graduate in physics and mathematics at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) has simplified a difficult mathematical problem to further illuminate the behavior of two-level quantum optical systems.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is investing $3 million in a new graduate student training program for aspiring scientists and educators who want to explore careers in quantum science at St. Louis-area research laboratories, private companies and other facilities.Sophia Hayes, vice dean of graduate education and professor of chemistry, and Kater Murch, professor of physics, both in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St.

• share
• favorite_border

UPTON, NY– After a successful first event, the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s National Quantum Information Science (QIS) Research Centers are preparing for their second virtual QIS Career Fair, to be held on Sept. 14, 2022. The event aims to make undergraduate, graduate, and postdoc communities aware of the wide range of QIS careers they can pursue—from technical and scientific roles to positions that facilitate research and bring awareness to the field, in areas including communications, marketing, and human resources.

• share
• favorite_border

For the first time, researchers have used ultrafast electron diffraction to observe a quantum electronic device as it operates. Researchers observed atomic-level changes in the vanadium dioxide switch over millionths of a second, leading to the discovery of a short-lived intermediate state. The results may aid in the development of high-speed, high-efficiency quantum electronics and in the use of pulsed electric fields to create new engineered materials.

• share
• favorite_border

Sandia National Laboratories pulsed-power physicist Daniel Sinars and quantum information scientist Andrew Landahl have each received 2021 Ernest Orlando Lawrence Awards, the U.S. Department of Energy’s highest scientific mid-career honor.

• share
• favorite_border

Quantized vortices play a pivotal role in the interpretation of quantum phase transitions and strongly correlated physics involving the underlying confluence of superfluids, Bose-Einstein condensates, and superconductors, thus it is crucial to study quantum vortices and their applications.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Chicago physicists have invented a “quantum flute” that, like the Pied Piper, can coerce particles of light to move together in a way that’s never been seen before.

• share
• favorite_border

A research group of Professor Makoto Tsubota and Specially Appointed Assistant Professor Satoshi Yui, both from the Graduate School of Science and the Nambu Yoichiro Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Osaka Metropolitan University, in cooperation with their colleagues from Florida State University and Keio University, conducted a systematic numerical study of vortex diffusion in quantum turbulence in superfluid helium-4 (He II) at extremely low temperatures, near absolute zero (−273°C), and compared the results with experimental observations.

• share
• favorite_border

A research group of Professor Makoto Tsubota and Specially Appointed Assistant Professor Satoshi Yui, both from the Graduate School of Science and the Nambu Yoichiro Institute of Theoretical and Experimental Physics, Osaka Metropolitan University, in cooperation with their colleagues from Florida State University and Keio University, conducted a systematic numerical study of vortex diffusion in quantum turbulence in superfluid helium-4 (He II) at extremely low temperatures, near absolute zero (−273°C), and compared the results with experimental observations.

• share
• favorite_border

Duality, the nation’s first accelerator exclusively for quantum companies, has accepted five startups from across the globe into the second cohort of the year-long accelerator based in Chicago, IL.

• share
• favorite_border

Recently, a team of researchers with the Illinois‐Express Quantum Network (IEQNET) successfully deployed a long-distance quantum network between two U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories using local fiber optics. The experiment marked the first time that quantum-encoded photons — the particle through which quantum information is delivered — and classical signals were simultaneously delivered across a metropolitan-scale distance with an unprecedented level of synchronization.

• share
• favorite_border

Imagine a road with two lanes in each direction. One lane is for slow cars, and the other is for fast ones.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists with the Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE) at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering announced today that for the first time they’ve connected the city of Chicago and suburban labs with a quantum network—nearly doubling the length of what was already one of the longest in the country.

• share
• favorite_border

A profile of Bo Peng, a scientist at PNNL working on error correction for quantum computing. He is a collaborator with Q-NEXT, one of the DOE National QIS Research Centers.

• share
• favorite_border

For would-be quantum programmers scratching their heads over how to jump into the game as quantum computers proliferate and become publicly accessible, a new beginner’s guide provides a thorough introduction to quantum algorithms and their implementation on existing hardware.

• share
• favorite_border

The University of Illinois Chicago has been selected to join the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage, a U.S. Department of Energy-funded center focused on building the tools necessary to create scalable, distributed and fault-tolerant quantum computer systems.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) has joined the Brookhaven National Laboratory-led Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C2QA), making the public research university C2QA’s 24th partner institution.

• share
• favorite_border

A Quantum Science Center-supported team has captured the first-ever appearance of a previously undetectable quantum excitation known as the axial Higgs mode.

• share
• favorite_border

A Bristol-led team of physicists has found a way to operate mass manufacturable photonic sensors at the quantum limit. This breakthrough paves the way for practical applications such as monitoring greenhouse gases and cancer detection.

• share
• favorite_border

Atoms do weird things when forced out of their comfort zones. Rice University engineers have thought up a new way to give them a nudge.

• share
• favorite_border

Superconductors are materials with no electrical resistance whatsoever, commonly requiring extremely low temperatures. They are used in a wide range of domains, from medical applications to a central role in quantum computers. Superconductivity is caused by specially linked pairs of electrons known as Cooper pairs. So far, the occurrence of Cooper pairs has been measured indirectly macroscopically in bulk, but a new technique developed by researchers at Aalto University and Oak Ridge National Laboratories in the US can detect their occurrence with atomic precision.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists have created the first ”time-crystal” two-body system in an experiment that seems to bend the laws of physics.

• share
• favorite_border

In conventional wisdom, producing a curved space requires distortions, such as bending or stretching a flat space.

• share
• favorite_border

A theoretical breakthrough in understanding quantum chaos could open new paths into researching quantum information and quantum computing, many-body physics, black holes, and the still-elusive quantum to classical transition.

• share
• favorite_border

Argonne researchers have used quantum computers to simulate spin defects, an important material property for the next generation of quantum computers.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers are developing the nation’s first drone-based, mobile quantum network for unhackable wireless communication. The network includes drones, a ground station, lasers and fiber optics. In war, these drones would provide one-time crypto-keys to exchange critical information, which spies and enemies would not be able to intercept. Quantum protects information using the laws of nature and not just by a clever manmade code.

• share
• favorite_border

At the quantum mechanics level, the mystery of what happens when electrons transition between metallic and insulator states has intrigued physicists for nearly 60 years. Modern instrumentation has provided a fascinating glimpse at the answer.

• share
• favorite_border

Novel simulation brings extraordinary fast radio bursts into the laboratory in a way once thought impossible.

• share
• favorite_border

AWS joins Q-NEXT as an institutional partner. Q-NEXT is a DOE National QIS Research Center led by Argonne.

• share
• favorite_border

A Berkeley Lab-led research team has demonstrated an ultrathin silicon nanowire that conducts heat 150% more efficiently than conventional materials used in advanced chip technologies. The device could enable smaller, faster, energy-efficient microelectronics.

• share
• favorite_border

Paul Benioff, an Argonne emeritus scientist, helped pave the way for the field of quantum computing that is now being intensely pursued throughout the world. He passed away on March 29, leaving a legacy of intellectual courage and collaboration.

• share
• favorite_border

Various technologies, networks and institutions benefit from or require accurate time keeping to synchronize their activities. Current ways of synchronizing time have some drawbacks that a new proposed method seeks to address.

• share
• favorite_border

Quantum computers are prone to errors that limit their usefulness in scientific research. While error correction would be the ideal solution, it is not yet feasible due to the number of qubits needed. New research shows the value of an error mitigation approach called noise estimation circuits for improving the reliability of quantum computer simulations.

• share
• favorite_border

A team led by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, in close collaboration with FAMU-FSU College of Engineering Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering Wei Guo, has announced the creation of a new qubit platform that shows great promise to be developed into future quantum computers. Their work is published in Nature.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists have developed a qubit platform formed by freezing neon gas into a solid, spraying electrons from a light bulb’s filament onto it, and trapping a single electron there. This system shows great promise as an ideal building block for quantum computers.

• share
• favorite_border

Quantum computing experiments now have a new control and readout electronics option that will significantly improve performance while replacing cumbersome and expensive systems. Developed by a team of engineers at Fermilab in collaboration with the University of Chicago, the Quantum Instrumentation Control Kit, or QICK for short, is easily scalable.

• share
• favorite_border

Double success for KIT: In its 2021 awarding round, the European Research Council (ERC) has decided to award an Advanced Grant each to computer scientist Mehdi Tahoori and physicist Alexey Ustinov. For their research projects in the areas of technical informatics and quantum physics, the renowned scientists will receive funding in the amount of about 2.5 million and 2.7 million euros, respectively, over the next five years.

• share
• favorite_border

Quantum computing holds the potential to be a game-changing future technology in fields ranging from chemistry to cryptography to finance to pharmaceuticals.

• share
• favorite_border

Since the first successful fabrication of a two-dimensional structure of carbon atoms about 20 years ago, graphene has fascinated scientists.

• share
• favorite_border

Two new advances from the lab of University of Oregon physicist Ben McMorran are refining the microscopes. Both come from taking advantage of a fundamental principle of quantum mechanics: that an electron can behave simultaneously like a wave and a particle. It’s one of many examples of weird, quantum-level quirks in which subatomic particles often behave in ways that seem to violate the laws of classical physics.

• share
• favorite_border

A research team led by the Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) was recently selected for second-phase funding of a $9.2 million project aimed at demonstrating a hybrid computing system that will combine the advantages of classical computing with those of quantum computing to tackle some of the world’s most difficult optimization problems.