Published in Physics World, 15 Apr 2009
Physicists in the US have created a junction through which single ultracold ions can pass without having their temperature raised. The junction is contained within a 2D ion trap and could be useful in building large-scale quantum computers.
Quantum computers, like classical computers, work by processing of bits of information. In classical computers such bits can take on only the values 0 and 1, but in quantum computers they can also take on “superpositions” of both 0 and 1. When many of these quantum bits or “qubits” are combined, a quantum computer can process them simultaneously. In principle, this would enable a quantum computer to work exponentially faster than its classical counterpart for certain operations — however many technical challenges must be overcome before practical quantum computers become a reality. […]
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