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Two different submitters wrote in to tell us about a new advance in qubit design for quantum computers.

Roo_Boy writes:

Engineers at the University of NSW have apparently come up with a new concept for quantum computing by proposing a different type of qubit that flips the spin of both the electron and the nucleus.

Engineers at Australia's University of New South Wales have invented a radical new architecture for quantum computing, based on novel 'flip-flop qubits', that promises to make the large-scale manufacture of quantum chips dramatically cheaper – and easier – than thought possible.

The new chip design, detailed in the journal Nature Communications, allows for a silicon quantum processor that can be scaled up without the precise placement of atoms required in other approaches. Importantly, it allows quantum bits (or 'qubits') – the basic unit of information in a quantum computer – to be placed hundreds of nanometres apart and still remain coupled.

The design was conceived by a team led by Andrea Morello, Program Manager in UNSW-based ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T), who said fabrication of the new design should be easily within reach of today's technology.

UNSW News Room

An Anonymous Coward writes:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2146503/

The race to create superfast computers is accelerating. A rethink of one of the most fundamental parts of a quantum computer could pave the way for ultra-powerful devices.

Andrea Morello at the University of New South Wales in Australia and his colleagues have a design for a qubit – the smallest unit of quantum information – that could help get round some of the difficulties of manufacturing quantum computers at an atomic scale.

At the moment, making quantum systems using silicon is difficult because the qubits have to be very close to each other, about 10 to 20 nanometres apart, in order to communicate. This leaves little room to place the electronics needed to make a quantum computer work.

But by combining an electron and nucleus into one qubit, Morello and his team think they've found a way to let qubits communicate over distances of up to 500 nanometres. "This would allow you to cram other things between qubits," says Morello.

Until now, most silicon-based qubits have been made from the electron or the nucleus of a single phosphorus atom. The team's design uses both the nucleus and the electron of a phosphorus atom to create a single qubit inside a layer of silicon.

Qubits in silicon systems interact through electric fields, and Morello's team shows that it's possible to extend the reach of those electric fields by pulling the electron further away from the nucleus of each atom.

This overcomes a couple of the major hurdles that held back silicon-based quantum systems, says Simon Devitt at Macquarie University in Sydney, and could eventually make it possible to create quantum computers with millions of qubits that can simulate simple chemical reactions.

Journal reference: Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00378-x

Original Submission