A SINGLE electron bouncing between two electrical traps has shown for the first time how information could be transferred between different parts of a quantum circuit. This game of quantum tennis marks an important step towards practical quantum computers.
鈥淲e鈥檙e basically playing ping-pong with a single electron,鈥� says at the University of Cambridge. 鈥淲e can capture single electrons and move them backwards and forwards wherever we like.鈥�
Quantum computers can perform hugely powerful calculations by manipulating information in the form of quantum bits, or qubits, which can be both a 0 and a 1 at the same time.
Advertisement
Qubits are fragile, however, and the act of measurement destroys them. So to protect quantum calculations, researchers need a way to transfer qubits from the area where the number crunching happens to a separate spot where they can be measured in isolation.
In a proof of concept experiment, Barnes and his colleagues have done just that. The team created two electron traps called quantum dots on a slab of gallium arsenide. They then used microwave pulses (Nature, ).
This represents a real milestone, Barnes says. 鈥淭he more bounces we get, the more amazing our quantum computer can be.鈥�
