A group of scientists have published what they believe is the most logical path toward creation of a quantum computer, and small tech figures largely into the development of the device.
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Traditional computing is limited by transistors, which can have only two states — they are either on or off. But atoms or molecules in a quantum computer can dwell in several different states simultaneously, increasing exponentially the rate at which complex calculations can take place or the volume of information that can be stored.
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Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), Massachussetts Institute of Technology and the University of Michigan published a paper Thursday in Nature magazine showing how best to use ion traps, or electromagnetic microdevices that capture ions and permit scientists to manipulate them, in construction of a quantum computer.
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Much research on ion traps and quantum computers has centered on the idea that many ions could be manipulated within a single trap. The new research builds on earlier studies that suggest using several interconnected ion traps.
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“For technical reasons, it’s a lot harder to manage a lot of bits in one trap, which is why we are making this,” said David Wineland, a NIST scientist who co-authored the paper.
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Wineland said he has worked on ion traps for 30 years, and that the other authors of the paper — David Kielpinski at MIT and Christopher Monroe at the University of Michigan — were affiliated with NIST when the idea for the research first started to take shape.
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“What we are trying to point out is we have at least a straightforward path to building a large device. That isn’t to say there aren’t a lot of technical problems, but at least we have a straightforward concept of how this might work,” Wineland said.
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Quantum computing is a holy grail for some in the intelligence computing because the computers theoretically would be able to crack almost any encryption. At the same time, the computers would be of concern to the government if others had them and could read coded communications. Quantum computers would be able to factor large numbers and perform complex calculations in big projects, such as modeling ecodiversity in a rain forest.
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Researchers around the world are working on developing quantum computers using different methods and approaches.
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Wineland’s team’s strategy involves corralling individual ions into the interconnected traps by changing the voltages in the traps. This also allows ions to be sent from trap to trap.
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“In any particular trap, we can manipulate a few ions using the methods already demonstrated, while the connections between traps allow communication between sets of ions,” they wrote in the paper. The process of shuttling ions back and forth permits the development of different regions for memory and logical processing.
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Work at NIST’s Boulder, Colo., laboratory demonstrated that ions could effectively travel between two ion traps separated by 1.2 millimeters. Electronic states remain stable with the device, suggesting that the method is practical for a quantum computer.
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Wineland said a working quantum computer is at least 15 years away.
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“We need to do a lot of work in terms of manipulating (ions) the way we want,” he said. “We can manipulate single ions and we can move them around and look at the properties now, but we need to do it better.”
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One obstacle, he said, is the devices “need to be made smaller than they are now.”
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“One of the things we are attacking is different things to make these small devices, these small ion traps,” he said.
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