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Electrons Controlled in Graphene on a Sub-Femtosecond Scale Using Lasers

posted by martyb on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:28PM   Printer-friendly
from the bright-idea dept.

takyon writes:

https://www.fau.eu/2017/09/25/news/research/the-fastest-light-driven-current-source/

Controlling electronic current is essential to modern electronics, as data and signals are transferred by streams of electrons which are controlled at high speed. Demands on transmission speeds are also increasing as technology develops. Scientists from the Chair of Laser Physics and the Chair of Applied Physics at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) have succeeded in switching on a current with a desired direction in graphene using a single laser pulse within a femtosecond ­­ – a femtosecond corresponds to the millionth part of a billionth of a second. This is more than a thousand times faster compared to the most efficient transistors today.

[...] For their experiments, the scientists fired extremely short laser pulses with specially engineered waveforms onto graphene. When these light waves hit the graphene, the electrons inside were hurled in one direction, like a whiplash. 'Under intense optical fields, a current was generated within a fraction of an optical cycle – a half femtosecond. It was surprising that despite these enormous forces, quantum mechanics still plays a key role,' explains Dr. Takuya Higuchi from the Chair of Laser Physics, the first author of the publication.

Light-field-driven currents in graphene (DOI: 10.1038/nature23900) (DX)

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:43PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @04:43PM (#573874)

    Is this applicable to quantum computing? Quantum computing has been getting a lot of attention lately as AI becomes more important, and as Microsoft is working on a quantum computing programming language [soylentnews.org].

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday September 27 2017, @05:15PM (1 child)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday September 27 2017, @05:15PM (#573893) Journal

    Is this applicable to quantum computing?

    Yes, it's not!

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @05:19PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 27 2017, @05:19PM (#573897)

      LOL! That's funny and not funny at the same time! LOL! LOL!

  • (Score: 2) by stormwyrm on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:50PM

    by stormwyrm (717) on Wednesday September 27 2017, @11:50PM (#574105) Journal
    The biggest problem that practical quantum computers need to overcome is decoherence: the tendency of a quantum superposition state to decay over time with interactions from the environment. One possible solution is to prepare your superposed qubits and perform the calculations using them and get the answers out before decoherence has time to destroy your carefully prepared qubits. Some schemes for building practical quantum computers involve manipulating trapped ions or such using lasers, and being able to do this at a sub-femtosecond scale the way the article describes can only make preparing and manipulating qubits ahead of decoherence easier.
    --
    Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.