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Physicists count sound particles with quantum microphone
Stanford physicists have developed a "quantum microphone" so sensitive that it can measure individual particles of sound, called phonons.
The device, which is detailed July 24 in the journal Nature, could eventually lead to smaller, more efficient quantum computers that operate by manipulating sound rather than light.
"We expect this device to allow new types of quantum sensors, transducers and storage devices for future quantum machines," said study leader Amir Safavi-Naeini, an assistant professor of applied physics at Stanford's School of Humanities and Sciences.
First proposed by Albert Einstein in 1907, phonons are packets of vibrational energy emitted by jittery atoms. These indivisible packets, or quanta, of motion manifest as sound or heat, depending on their frequencies.
Like photons, which are the quantum carriers of light, phonons are quantized, meaning their vibrational energies are restricted to discrete values—similar to how a staircase is composed of distinct steps.
"Sound has this granularity that we don't normally experience," Safavi-Naeini said. "Sound, at the quantum level, crackles."
[...] Mastering the ability to precisely generate and detect phonons could help pave the way for new kinds of quantum devices that are able to store and retrieve information encoded as particles of sound or that can convert seamlessly between optical and mechanical signals.
Such devices could conceivably be made more compact and efficient than quantum machines that use photons, since phonons are easier to manipulate and have wavelengths that are thousands of times smaller than light particles.
"Right now, people are using photons to encode these states. We want to use phonons, which brings with it a lot of advantages," Safavi-Naeini said. "Our device is an important step toward making a 'mechanical quantum mechanical' computer."
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Sunday July 28 2019, @11:48PM (2 children)
After looking at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phonon [wikipedia.org], my take is that phonons are nothing more than the particle equivalent of waves, which in the case of phonons, represents the propagation of mechanical waves in the lattice structure of the transducer itself (not the air through which sound waves travel). It’s just an alternative mathematical description of an already well known phenomenon.
Seems like a really big stretch to go from a “detector” to a mechanical system that can be used for storage and computation, but I’m open to more learned points of view.
I have to confess that as an EE, I’ve been conditioned to believe that as soon as you get moving parts involved in a otherwise all electrical or optical implementation, things get less reliable and slow down. Think of what happens when the HDD starts spinning on your PC. Yeah, it’s crude analogy, but you get the idea.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by c0lo on Monday July 29 2019, @12:41AM (1 child)
Don't forget the context of this equivalence (quantum mechanics). The correct form of expression is: "quantified levels of vibration modes for the lattice"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Monday July 29 2019, @10:58PM
Yes, I read the article again with my Quantum Bingo Card [tm] at hand and was able to fill in enough boxes that I cried out “BINGO” three times.