Impure diamonds make perfect computers

Diamonds have the potential to act as building blocks for quantum computing.

In an article published in Nature Physics last month, a group of researchers found that the nitrogen vacancy centre in a diamond can be used for quantum memory.

The paper was published by the Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation, University of California, Santa Barbara, California; and the Department of Physics, University of Konstanz. Researchers named were G. D. Fuchs, P. V. Klimov, D. D. Awschalom

Quantum computers uses quantum mechanics to perform operations much faster than traditional computers, which are based on transitors.

Computers are essentially a large collection of coordinated bits that are either in the on or off state. A quantum computer is composed of quantum bits or qubits, which can have many more states, thus exponentially increasing the computer’s power.

But finding an effective medium for quantum computing has been ellusive, and researchers found that diamonds may be one of the answers.

They wrote the following:

A quantum memory, composed of a long-lived qubit coupled to each processing qubit, is important to building a scalable platform for quantum information science. These two qubits should be connected by a fast and high-fidelity operation to store and retrieve coherent quantum states. Here, we demonstrate a room-temperature quantum memory based on the spin of the nitrogen nucleus intrinsic to each nitrogen–vacancy (NV) centre in diamond.

Geekosystem does a good job of explaining what the reseachers achieved:

What the papers really do is lay out blueprints for what is needed to achieve efficient quantum memory. A magnetic field is applied to split the qubit, the energy state of which is set with a laser pulse. The state can be manipulated with microwaves, and the magnetic field can then be increased to a new value so a radio frequency pulse can then push the state onto the nitrogen nucleus. Increasing the magnetic field further makes the stored state become isolated. In order to retrieve the qubit, the process is simply reversed.

Great! So, that means what? Well, for those among us with no background in quantum mechanics we’re going to have to look at things from an atomic level to figure out how qubits are made from impure diamonds. Basically, it is all about the atomic structure of the diamond’s molecules, and how they interact and can be manipulated.

Quatum computing, as whole, is still in the experimental phase; however, Lockheed Martin is buying the world’s first commmercial quanutm computing system from D-Wave Systems.

Michael McCrae wrote this story. You can contact him at [email protected] or on twitter at @michaelmccrae.

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