Solid-State Quantum Computer

It's not nanotech, except in the sense that anything small and interesting enough counts as nanotech. But it's a significant milestone toward a game-changing technology.

An electronic quantum processor with two qubits, each made of about a billion aluminum atoms, has been created at Yale university. They can get the qubits to maintain their state for about a microsecond. And they have a "quantum bus" that can pass information between the bits.

I don't understand all the cool things you can do with a quantum computer, but apparently it can be useful for simulating quantum chemistry. I suspect we'll have covalent-solid molecular manufacturing before this quantum computer technology develops to the point where it can help, but I've been surprised before by how fast technologies can advance.

Chris Phoenix

Comments

[the Oakster1]

The problems they note is how to extend the lifetime of the entanglement; a week or so before this annoincement, there was a report of using lasers to extend the lifetimes of entanglements.

In short, I expect to see rapid progress in quantum computing; i'm not sure about your(Mr Phoenix) timetable for quantum computing vs whatever level of nanomanufacturing; but, I'm thinking quantum computing comes certainly before daimondoid nanomanufacturing;

[r4 sdhc]

Hi,

Scientists have already built basic quantum computers that can perform certain calculations; but a practical quantum computer is still years away.