Much like cold fusion, nano-computing always seems ten years off. The years go by, technology advances, but the goal doesn’t seem to get any closer. Last week, however, a team of Purdue University scientists reported overcoming a major hurdle in the path to creating a functional quantum computer.
The scientists results, published online in the journal Nature Physics, explain how a natural impurity in silicon transistors opens the door for quantum computer chips. In theory, quantum computing would work by storing information not as electrons fixed to a magnetic surface or traveling across a conductive transistor like current computers, but by manipulating the energy state of single electrons as they orbited an atom. The Purdue researchers showed that the arsenic impurities in silicon chips provide just the sort of free electron needed for quantum computing, and then demonstrated how they could manipulate the state of that electron by opening or closing the flow across the transistor.
This discovery goes a long way towards reconciling the theory of quantum computing with the engineering that would actually be needed to make the technology work. Like bites in regular computers, the basic unit of information in quantum computing is a qubit, and this experiment demonstrates how to turn a stray arsenic electron into a functioning qubit. However, this still leaves the practical application of this technology years in the future, as 10,000 qubits would be needed for a quantum computer to full its promise of instantaneous searching and unbreakable encryption. How many years off in the future does it leave it? Well, let’s be on the safe side and say ten.
138 years of Popular Science at your fingertips.
Each issue has been completely reimagined for your iPad. See our amazing new vision for magazines that goes far beyond the printed page
Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone or Android phone with full articles, images and offline viewing
Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed
Science is reinventing play, from extreme sports to gamification to ridiculous roller coasters to the playgrounds of tomorrow, and this issue is chock full of fun. Also, on a less fun note: Did global warming destroy my hometown?
"Like bites in regular computers"
I believe you mean bits - which make up bytes.
from GangNam Gu, Seoul
Space tourism, quantum computers, no more petrolium... they're always "in ten years"
Right....
Quick, mythgarr! Its the nobel prize committee at your door.
How much energy does it take to appropiately manipulate the atom. I am assumming that the amount of energy totally makes any soon use preposterous.
http://the.nerd.herd.group.googlepages.com/
I saw an article using stumble where they could make 1 TB flash drives doing this to a plate of copper.
http://www.davidjarvis.ca/entanglement/
That looks like a portable trash 80 by Radio Crack.
@ smokydude
Good thing is says IBM on it instead of "Tandy Radio Shack".
That is an old IBM portable.
It's an old IBM "Portable" PC, the early laptop.
http://oldcomputers.net/ibm5155.html