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Quantum physics promises huge advances not just in quantum computing but also in a quantum internet a next-generation framework for transferring data from one place to another. Scientists have now invented technology suitable for a quantum modem that could act as a network gateway.

What makes a quantum internet superior to the regular, existing internet that you're reading this through is security: interfering with the data being transmitted with quantum techniques would essentially break the connection. It's as close to unhackable as you can possibly get.

As with trying to produce practical, commercial quantum computers though, turning the quantum internet from potential to reality is taking time not surprising, considering the incredibly complex physics involved. A quantum modem could be a very important step forward for the technology.

"In the future, a quantum internet could be used to connect quantum computers located in different places, which would considerably increase their computing power!" says physicist Andreas Reiserer, from the Max Planck Institute in Germany.

Quantum computing is built around the idea of qubits, which unlike classical computer bits can store several states simultaneously. The new research focuses on connecting stationary qubits in a quantum computer with moving qubits travelling between these machines.

That's a tough challenge when you're dealing with information that's stored as delicately as it is with quantum physics. In this setup, light photons are used to store quantum data in transit, photons that are precisely tuned to the infrared wavelength of laser light used in today's communication systems.

That gives the new system a key advantage in that it'll work with existing fibre optic networks, which would make a quantum upgrade much more straightforward when the technology is ready to roll out.

In figuring out how to get stored qubits at rest reacting just right with moving infrared photons, the researchers determined that the element erbium and its electrons were best suited for the job but erbium atoms aren't naturally inclined to make the necessary quantum leap between two states. To make that possible, the static erbium atoms and the moving infrared photons are essentially locked up together until they get along.

Working out how to do this required a careful calculation of the space and conditions needed. Inside their modem, the researchers installed a miniature mirrored cabinet around a crystal made of ayttrium silicate compound. This set up was then was cooled to minus 271 degrees Celsius (minus 455.8 degrees Fahrenheit).

The modem mirror cabinet. (Max Planck Institute)

The cooled crystal kept the erbium atoms stable enough to force an interaction, while the mirrors bounced the infrared photons around tens of thousands of times essentially creating tens of thousands of chances for the necessary quantum leap to happen. The mirrors make the system 60 times faster and much more efficient than it would be otherwise, the researchers say.

Once that jump between the two states has been made, the information can be passed somewhere else. That data transfer raises a whole new set of problems to be overcome, but scientists are busy working on solutions.

As with many advances in quantum technology, it's going to take a while to get this from the lab into actual real-world systems, but it's another significant step forward and the same study could also help in quantum processors and quantum repeaters that pass data over longer distances.

"Our system thus enables efficient interactions between light and solid-state qubits while preserving the fragile quantum properties of the latter to an unprecedented degree," write the researchers in their published paper.

The research has been published in Physical Review X.

Read more:
A Modem With a Tiny Mirror Cabinet Could Help Connect The Quantum Internet - ScienceAlert

Until recently an abstract concept, quantum computing is gaining notice in several industries, including financial services, manufacturing and logistics.

In June, for example, JPMorgan Chase published data on its experiments using Honeywells quantum technology, describing its efforts to produce a quantum oracle, or to use math to better predict the future. The financial services giant is accessing the technology directly via API, according to Honeywell Quantum Solutions President Tony Uttley, who says the company is interested in tasks such as optimization around trading strategies and fraud detection.

The JPMorgan Chase study, while academic in nature, is being received in computer science and business circles as an exciting development.

Now you can actually start to use real quantum algorithms on real quantum computers, understand how they work, which classes are working better than others, and start to pinpoint those use cases you think are going to be the most profound, Uttley says.

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Instead of the binary 1s and 0s traditional computers use, quantum computing involves quantum bits, or qubits, which can be read as 1s, 0s or both.

That seemingly subtle difference will allow quantum computers to process massive amounts of information, solving drastically more complex problems than a regular computer would be able to in less time in the near future, according to Paul Smith-Goodson, quantum computing analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy.

While quantum usage is still in its early stages, several providers are offering cloud access to the technology, Smith-Goodson says. Its come a long way much faster than what was originally anticipated. A lot of companies are doing experimenting using quantum computing.

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IBM has offered cloud access to quantum computers since 2016 via its website-based IBM Quantum Experience; nearly 250,000 people have registered to do so, says Robert Sutor, vice president of IBM quantum ecosystem development.

We have democratized access to quantum computers since the very beginning because we felt it was such a new technology, and we have to get people ready, Sutor says.

Quantum computing still has some distance to go to reach its full potential. For now, error rates are too high, producing what researchers call noise in the data the machines produce.

The more qubits you have, the more noise you generate, he says. To do a really serious type of quantum computing, to model or create a new drug or simulate a very complex chemical, youre going to need millions to billions of qubits. Right now, were just not at the stage where we can scale up to that point because we have limitations with noise.

But the technologys potential is irresistible, and big companies are exploring it. Aerospace company Boeing, for example, is using it to model the movement of air and water over surfaces, and its helping Daimler Mercedes-Benz, in its work to create new lithium car batteries.

In this very short period of time, we have gotten people involved with business use cases: applications like chemistry and looking at how to do some aspect of artificial intelligence better, Sutor says. Financial companies are asking, How do we get the most accurate view of the price of a financial portfolio? People are on track to take better advantage as we create more powerful machines.

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Quantum Computing Is Moving from Theory to Reality - BizTech Magazine

Walk into a quantum lab where scientists trap ions, and you'll find benchtops full of mirrors and lenses, all focusing lasers to hit an ion trapped in place above a chip. By using lasers to control ions, scientists have learned to harness ions as quantum bits, or qubits, the basic unit of data in a quantum computer. But this laser setup is holding research back making it difficult to experiment with more than a few ions and to take these systems out of the lab for real use.

Now, MIT Lincoln Laboratory researchers have developed a compact way to deliver laser light to trapped ions. In a recent paper published in Nature, the researchers describe a fiber-optic block that plugs into the ion-trap chip, coupling light to optical waveguides fabricated in the chip itself. Through these waveguides, multiple wavelengths of light can be routed through the chip and released to hit the ions above it.

It's clear to many people in the field that the conventional approach, using free-space optics such as mirrors and lenses, will only go so far, says Jeremy Sage, an author on the paper and senior staff in Lincoln Laboratory's Quantum Information and Integrated Nanosystems Group. If the light instead is brought onto the chip, it can be directed around to the many locations where it needs to be. The integrated delivery of many wavelengths may lead to a very scalable and portable platform. We're showing for the first time that it can be done.

Multiple colors

Computing with trapped ions requires precisely controlling each ion independently. Free-space optics have worked well when controlling a few ions in a short one-dimensional chain. But hitting a single ion among a larger or two-dimensional cluster, without hitting its neighbors, is extremely difficult. When imagining a practical quantum computer requiring thousands of ions, this task of laser control seems impractical.

That looming problem led researchers to find another way. In 2016, Lincoln Laboratory and MIT researchers demonstrated a new chip with built-in optics. They focused a red laser onto the chip, where waveguides on the chip routed the light to a grating coupler, a kind of rumble strip to stop the light and direct it up to the ion.

Red light is crucial for doing a fundamental operation called a quantum gate, which the team performed in that first demonstration. But up to six different-colored lasers are needed to do everything required for quantum computation: prepare the ion, cool it down, read out its energy state, and perform quantum gates. With this latest chip, the team has extended their proof of principle to the rest of these required wavelengths, from violet to the near-infrared.

With these wavelengths, we were able to perform the fundamental set of operations that you need to be able to control trapped ions, says John Chiaverini, also an author on the paper. The one operation they didn't perform, a two-qubit gate, was demonstrated by a team at ETH Zrich by using a chip similar to the 2016 work, and is described in a paper in the same Nature issue. This work, paired together with ours, shows that you have all the things you need to start building larger trapped-ion arrays, Chiaverini adds.

Fiber optics

To make the leap from one to multiple wavelengths, the team engineered a method to bond a fiber-optic block directly to the side of the chip. The block consists of four optical fibers, each one specific to a certain range of wavelengths. These fibers line up with a corresponding waveguide patterned directly onto the chip.

Getting the fiber block array aligned to the waveguides on the chip and applying the epoxy felt like performing surgery. It was a very delicate process. We had about half a micronof tolerance and it needed to survive cooldown to4 kelvins, says Robert Niffenegger, who led the experiments and is first author on the paper.

On top of the waveguides sits a layer of glass. On top of the glass are metal electrodes, which produce electric fields that hold the ion in place; holes are cut out of the metal over the grating couplers where the light is released. The entire device was fabricated in the Microelectronics Laboratory at Lincoln Laboratory.

Designing waveguides that could deliver the light to the ions with low loss, avoiding absorption or scattering, was a challenge, as loss tends to increase with bluer wavelengths. It was a process of developing materials, patterning the waveguides, testing them, measuring performance, and trying again. We also had to make sure the materials of the waveguides worked not only with the necessary wavelengths of light, but also that they didn't interfere with the metal electrodes that trap the ion, Sage says.

Scalable and portable

The team is now looking forward to what they can do with this fully light-integrated chip. For one, make more, Niffenegger says. Tiling these chips into an array could bring together many more ions, each able to be controlled precisely, opening the door to more powerful quantum computers.

Daniel Slichter, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology who was not involved in this research, says, This readily scalable technology will enable complex systems with many laser beams for parallel operations, all automatically aligned and robust to vibrations and environmental conditions, and will in my view be crucial for realizing trapped ion quantum processors with thousands of qubits.

An advantage of this laser-integrated chip is that it's inherently resistant to vibrations. With external lasers, any vibration to the laser would cause it to miss the ion, as would any vibrations to the chip. Now that the laser beams and chip are coupled together, the effects of vibrations are effectively nullified.

This stability is important for the ions to sustain coherence, or to operate as qubits long enough to compute with them. It's also important if trapped-ion sensors are to become portable. Atomic clocks, for example, that are based on trapped ions could keep time much more precisely than today's standard, and could be used to improve the accuracy of GPS, which relies on the synchronization of atomic clocks carried on satellites.

We view this work as an example of bridging science and engineering, that delivers a true advantage to both academia and industry, Sage says. Bridging this gap is the goal of the MIT Center for Quantum Engineering, where Sage is a principal investigator.We need quantum technology to be robust, deliverable, and user-friendly, for people to use who aren't PhDs in quantum physics, Sage says.

Simultaneously, the team hopes that this device can help push academic research. We want other research institutes to use this platform so that they can focus on other challenges like programming and running algorithms with trapped ions on this platform, for example. We see it opening the door to further exploration of quantum physics, Chiaverini says.

More here:
Lighting up the ion trap - MIT News

The University of Toronto and Japans Fujitsu Laboratories Ltd. have agreed to renew, for three years, a partnership that seeks to advance innovative computing research projects with wide-scale applications.

The partnership extension was marked this week by a transglobal videoconference that included Fujitsu CEO Hirotaka Hara and U of T President Meric Gertler, as well as other senior leaders and researchers.

The group discussed the progress of the partnership which launched in 2018 and involved the establishment of the Fujitsu Co-Creation Research Laboratory at U of Ts Myhal Centre for Engineering Innovation & Entrepreneurship and what can be achieved in the future.

Fujitsu is one of the worlds most admired companies and Fujitsu Laboratories is a major engine of research and development in leading innovation clusters around the world including Beijing, Silicon Valley, London and now, of course, Toronto, President Gertler said during the videoconference.

The University of Toronto and our department of electrical and computer engineering both enjoy very high rankings globally, and we are the academic anchor of an impressive innovation ecosystem here in the Toronto region.

Since its launch, the Fujitsu Co-Creation Research Laboratory has been credited with such major advancements as the advent of the Digital Annealer, a computing architecture that is inspired by quantum principles and can carry out operations beyond the scope of conventional computers, opening up potential applications in health care, drug discovery, finance, logistics, transportation and more.

Fujitsu also launched an R&D centre in Toronto in 2017 as part of its partnership with the university.

President Gertler said the collaboration between U of T and Fujitsu is testament to the richness of Torontos technology and innovation ecosystem.

Toronto is increasingly recognized as a global investment destination, he said. The University of Toronto is a major factor in shaping that status and making Toronto so attractive, and the presence of Fujitsu Laboratories has helped raise this attractiveness even further

Hara, who was appointed the CEO of Fujitsu Laboratories in 2019, said the company is excited about its ongoing association with U of T and the potential research outcomes of the partnership.

As a global brand, Fujitsu is always looking for innovative solutions to real-world problems, he said. Through this partnership, we have the opportunity to work with world-class researchers to contribute to social impact.

He added that the Fujitsu Co-Creation Research Laboratory was responsible for important developments.

The Digital Annealer is a great example of the exciting technology we have been developing together. Therefore, we would like to engage in future research of the Digital Annealer with U of T with greater outcomes.

The partnership between U of T and Fujitsu Labs can be traced back more than two decades to 1998, when Professor Ali Sheikholeslami, then a PhD student in electrical engineering at U of T, did a six-week internship at Fujitsu Labs.

Following the internship, Sheikholeslami continued to work with Fujitsu Lab researchers, and a formal collaboration was established after Sheikholeslami was hired as a faculty member at the Edward S. Rogers. Sr. department of electrical and computer engineering in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering.

Today, Sheikholeslami is the head of the Fujitsu Co-Creation Research Laboratory, which has engaged more than 10 faculty members and 25 graduate students and post-doctoral researchers from fields ranging from electrical, computer, mechanical and industrial engineering to medicine, finance and statistics.

In collaboration with Fujitsu, Sheikholeslami said the researchers aim to improve the speed, accuracy and flexibility of the Digital Annealer technology. He added quantum computing is another promising avenue.

We would like to collaborate with Fujitsu and expand our collaboration into the area of quantum computing, Sheikholeslami said. As you know, a quantum computer is a natural extension of the Digital Annealer.

What we would like to do is build quantum computing systems in the near future. We have a lot of expertise at U of T all the expertise that it takes to build this quantum processing unit. We have expertise in physics, hardware, algorithm and in software. We will be discussing the possible collaboration.

Sheikholeslami said U of T and Fujitsu have applied for or are in the process of applying for patents on a range of inventions.More inventions are in the making, and theres a possibility now of U of T and Fujitsu co-creating startups for the first time, he said.

In his closing remarks, President Gertler lauded the progress achieved by the partnership and highlighted that the best is yet to come.

As the platform expands now to include even more disciplines, no doubt it will enable even greater accomplishments in the years to come, he said. I, for one, will be truly delighted to follow its progress.

The rest is here:
U of T and Fujitsu extend agreement to collaborate on cutting-edge computing research - News@UofT

When Thomas Searles was assigned a book report in the first grade, he initially had trouble choosing a topic. He really didnt like fiction books. After a bit of indecision, he chose to write his report on a book about Black astronauts. Though he didnt realize it at the time, his journey to becoming a physicist at MIT had just begun.

I looked in the book, and there was Ronald E. McNair, who happens to be an MIT alum, randomly; he got his PhD here, Searles says. And it said that he was a laser physicist. So, I said, Well, that's what I'm going to be, because I want to be an astronaut.

Searles is now a member of the 2020-21 Martin Luther King (MLK) Visiting Professors and Scholars Program cohort at MIT. Since 1995, the MLK Scholars Program has brought in a total of 67 visiting professors and 21 visiting scholars from across all academic disciplines. Individuals of any underrepresented minority group are eligible to apply, and scholars are selected for their contributions both to their fields and their potential contributions to MIT.

It's something that was always on my radar as a young Black scientist, Searles said. It was something that was on my five- to 10-year plan.

Searles is currently an associate professor in the Department of Physics at Howard University, a historically Black college and university (HBCU) located in Washington. There, he established a new research program in applied and materials physics. He is also the director of a new academic partnership between IBM and 13 other HBCUs called the IBM-HBCU Quantum Center.

Searles research career began as an undergraduate in mathematics and physics at Morehouse College, a HBCU in Atlanta. Before graduating in 2005, he worked in an optics lab, examining the properties of light and its interactions with matter.

A lot of us had an interest in optics, because that was the only experimental lab that we had at Morehouse at the time, Searles says. So naturally, I applied to graduate schools that were optics-related.

That interest led him to pursue his PhD in applied physics in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Rice University in Houston, Texas, from which he graduated. Before graduating in 2011, he studied light-matter interactions, and completed a thesis about the magneto-optical properties of carbon nanotubes, tiny cylinders comprised of a single layer of carbon atoms. Carbon nanotubes are extremely strong, lightweight, and electrically conductive, making them promising for a variety of applications.

In 2015, Searles started at Howard University. I wanted to go back and work at an HBCU. I thought of my experience working in the Morehouse optics lab and how they kind of shaped my experience, Searles says. So then I was like, What can I do that's different from everyone else that will also provide opportunities to a lot of Black students? So, I set out to start a terahertz experimental lab, knowing that it was going to be difficult. And it was difficult. But we were able to do it.

In the terahertz spectroscopy lab at Howard University, researchers work with matter that has a large wavelength, and a frequency between several hundred gigahertz and several terahertz. During the first so-called quantum age in the mid-1900s, silicon was the new, exciting material used to develop transistors. Now, researchers in fields like chemistry and physics are on the hunt for the next material to be a platform for a new generation of quantum technologies.

The primary goal is to study materials for new computers, making them either safer, faster, or more secure, Searles says. This whole idea of quantum computing is what we're focusing our lab on, moving towards this idea of quantum advantage.

Quantum computing relies upon the use of quantum materials which have unique electronic and magnetic properties to build faster, stronger, and more powerful computers. Such machines are likely to provide this quantum advantage for new developments in medicine, science, finance, chemistry, and many other fields.

In 2016, Searles met MIT associate professor of physics and Mitsui Career Development Professor in Contemporary Technology Joseph Checkelsky at an event through the National Science Foundation Center for Integrated Quantum Materials.

The idea was to try to find people that we wanted to collaborate and work with, Checkelsky says. And I think I even wrote down in my notepad Thomas' name and put a big underline that I should work with this guy. Searles says the best thing that can ever happen to a spectroscopist like himself is to find a crystal-growth person that provides samples, who you also really vibe with and like as a person. And that person for me has been Joe. The two have been collaborating ever since.

Checkelskys lab works to discover new crystalline materials that enable quantum phenomena. For instance, one material that has previously been of interest to Checkelsky is a kagome crystal lattice, a 2D arrangement of iron and tin molecules. Both Checkelsky and Searles are interested in applying a branch of mathematics called topology to solids, particularly semimetals.

One of the roles Thomas plays is to examine the optical properties of these new systems to understand how light interacts with quantum materials, Checkelsky says. Its not only fundamentally important, it can also be the bridge that connects to new technologies that interfaces light with quantum science.

Searles expertise on the optics side of the research enables him to identify which materials are ideal for further study, while Checkelskys group is able to synthesize materials with certain properties of interest.

It's a cycle of innovation where his lab knows how it can be tested and my lab knows how to generate the material, Checkelsky says. Each time we get through the cycle is another step toward answering questions in fundamental science that can also bring us to new platforms for quantum technology.

Checkelsky nominated Searles for the MLK Scholars Program in hopes of further expanding their academic partnership. He now serves as Searles host researcher through the program.

I hope to extend my collaboration with Joe to not only [explore] this condensed matter, experimental side of my group, but to expand this into Lincoln Laboratory and the quantum information portion that MIT has, Searles says. I think that's critical, research-wise.

In addition to their research goals, Searles and Checkelsky are excited to strengthen the general connection between MIT and Howard.

I think there are opportunities for Thomas to see, for example, the graduate school process in our department, Checkelsky says. Along the same lines, it is a great opportunity for MIT and our department to learn more how to connect to the people and science within HBCUs. It is a great chance for information to flow both ways.

Searles also hopes to encourage more HBCU students to pursue graduate study at MIT. The goal of increasing the number of qualified applicants [from HBCUs] I think that's something that I can measure metrically from the first year, Searles says. And if there's anything that I can do to help with that number, I think that would be awesome.

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For Thomas Searles, a passion for people and science at HBCUs and MIT - MIT News