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On-chip frequency shifters in the gigahertz range could be used in next generation quantum computers and networks

The ability to precisely control and change properties of a photon, including polarization, position in space, and arrival time, gave rise to a wide range of communication technologies we use today, including the Internet. The next generation of photonic technologies, such as photonic quantum networks and computers, will require even more control over the properties of a photon.

One of the hardest properties to change is a photon’s color, otherwise known as its frequency, because changing the frequency of a photon means changing its energy.

Today, most frequency shifters are either too inefficient, losing a lot of light in the , or they can’t convert light in the gigahertz range, which is where the most important frequencies for communications, computing, and other applications are found.

Emergent Matter Scientists Successfully Manipulate a Single Skyrmion at Room Temperature

Scientists from the RIKEN Center for Emergent Matter Science and collaborators have shown that they can manipulate single skyrmions—tiny magnetic vortices that could be used as computing bits in future ultra-dense information storage devices—using pulses of electric current, at room temperature.

Skyrmions—tiny particles that can be moved under small electric currents several orders lower than those used for driving magnetic domain walls—are being studied in the hope of developing promising applications in data storage devices with low energy consumption. The key to creating spintronics devices is the ability to effectively manipulate, and measure, a single tiny vortex.

Most research to date has focused on the dynamics for skyrmions a micrometer or more in size or skyrmion clusters stabilized below room temperature. For the current research, published in Nature Communications, the researchers used a thin magnetic plate made up of a compound of cobalt, zinc, and manganese, Co9Zn9Mn2, which is known as a chiral-lattice magnet. They directly observed the dynamics of a single skyrmion, with a size of 100 nanometers, at room temperature using Lorentz transmission electron microscopy. They were able to track the motions of the skyrmion and control its Hall motion directions by flipping the magnetic field, when they subjected it to ultrafast pulses of electric current—on the scale of nanoseconds.

256-qubit Quantum Computer Unveiled

The first 256-qubit quantum computer has been announced by startup company QuEra, founded by MIT and Harvard scientists.

QuEra Computing Inc. – a new Boston, Massachusetts-based company – has emerged from stealth mode with $17 million in funding and has completed the assembly of a 256-qubit device. Its funders include Japanese e-commerce giant Rakuten, Day One Ventures, Frontiers Capital, and the leading tech investors Serguei Beloussov and Paul Maritz. The company recently received a DARPA award, and has already generated $11 million in revenue.

QuEra Computing recently achieved ground-breaking research on neutral atoms, developed at Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which is being used as the basis for a highly scalable, programmable quantum computer solution. The QuEra team is aiming to build the world’s most powerful quantum computers to take on computational tasks that are currently deemed impossibly hard.

A new artificial material mimics quantum-entangled rare earth compounds

Physicists have created a new ultra-thin, two-layer material with quantum properties that normally require rare earth compounds. This material, which is relatively easy to make and does not contain rare earth metals, could provide a new platform for quantum computing and advance research into unconventional superconductivity and quantum criticality.

The researchers showed that by starting from seemingly common materials, a radically new quantum state of matter can appear. The discovery emerged from their efforts to create a quantum spin liquid which they could use to investigate emergent quantum phenomena such as gauge theory. This involves fabricating a single layer of atomically thin tantalum disulphide, but the process also creates islands that consist of two layers.

When the team examined these islands, they found that interactions between the two layers induced a phenomenon known as the Kondo effect, leading to a macroscopically entangled state of matter producing a heavy-fermion system.

Japan Is Investing Over $5 Billion to Solve the World’s Chip Shortage

Bringing global giants into the economic fight.

The world’s biggest chip-making nation is getting serious.

Japan has committed $5.2 billion (roughly 600 billion yen) toward providing support for semiconductor manufacturers in a bid to help solve the world’s ongoing chip shortage.

While the funds will go to several chipmakers, the most notable among them is the largest one in the world, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), according to an initial Tuesday report from Nikkei.

Japan invests $5.2 billion in Taiwan’s giant chip-making firm TSMC also said that it would construct a new chip plant in Japan for $7 billion in a joint effort with Sony Group Corp. Understandably, the government of Japan was pleased. The remaining 200 billion yen of Japan’s new investment will be directed toward preparing other factories for multiple new projects, including one under development by the U.S. memory chipmaker Micron Technology Inc, and Japan’s Kioxia Holdings, according to the report. Japan has remained the largest chip-making industry in the world since the 1980s. But since then the nation has fought an uphill battle to maintain its competitive edge in an increasingly crowded industry, falling into a steady decline in the last three decades as economic rivals like manufacturers based in Taiwan continued to close the gap.

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TSMC To Receive $3.47 Billion In Subsidies From Japan Government For $7 Billion Chip Factory It Will Set Up In Kumamoto

TSMC getting half their factory paid for by the Japan government shows how concerned governments are getting about the fact that we are down to 3 companies in the world that can make high-end chips. Sony is also contributing $500 million to this factory in addition to the Japan government money.


Japan will provide 600 billion yen ($5.2 billion) as part of its fiscal 2021 supplementary budget to support advanced semiconductor manufacturers.

The Mathematical Structure of Particle Collisions Comes Into View

And that’s where physicists are getting stuck.

Zooming in to that hidden center involves virtual particles — quantum fluctuations that subtly influence each interaction’s outcome. The fleeting existence of the quark pair above, like many virtual events, is represented by a Feynman diagram with a closed “loop.” Loops confound physicists — they’re black boxes that introduce additional layers of infinite scenarios. To tally the possibilities implied by a loop, theorists must turn to a summing operation known as an integral. These integrals take on monstrous proportions in multi-loop Feynman diagrams, which come into play as researchers march down the line and fold in more complicated virtual interactions.

Physicists have algorithms to compute the probabilities of no-loop and one-loop scenarios, but many two-loop collisions bring computers to their knees. This imposes a ceiling on predictive precision — and on how well physicists can understand what quantum theory says.