Lifeboat Foundation

For years, scientists have looked for ways to cool molecules down to ultracold temperatures, at which point the molecules should slow to a crawl, allowing scientists to precisely control their quantum behavior. This could enable researchers to use molecules as complex bits for quantum computing, tuning individual molecules like tiny knobs to carry out multiple streams of calculations at a time.

While scientists have super-cooled atoms, doing the same for molecules, which are more complex in their behavior and structure, has proven to be a much bigger challenge.

Now MIT physicists have found a way to cool molecules of sodium lithium down to 200 billionths of a Kelvin, just a hair above absolute zero. They did so by applying a technique called collisional cooling, in which they immersed molecules of cold sodium lithium in a cloud of even colder sodium atoms. The ultracold atoms acted as a refrigerant to cool the molecules even further.

“Collisional cooling has been the workhorse for cooling atoms,” adds Nobel Prize laureate Wolfgang Ketterle, the John D. Arthur professor of physics at MIT. “I wasn’t convinced that our scheme would work, but since we didn’t know for sure, we had to try it. We know now that it works for cooling sodium lithium molecules. Whether it will work for other classes of molecules remains to be seen.” MIT School of Science, Harvard — MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms, RLE at MIT — Research Laboratory of Electronics at MIT, #research #supercooledatoms #nanokelvin #WolfgangKetterle

Technique may enable molecule-based quantum computing.

Abstract: Quantum optics is the study of the intrinsically quantum properties of light. During the second part of the 20th century experimental and theoretical progress developed together; nowadays quantum optics provides a testbed of many fundamental aspects of quantum mechanics such as coherence and quantum entanglement. Quantum optics helped trigger, both directly and indirectly, the birth of quantum technologies, whose aim is to harness non-classical quantum effects in applications from quantum key distribution to quantum computing. Quantum light remains at the heart of many of the most promising and potentially transformative quantum technologies. In this review, we celebrate the work of Sir Peter Knight and present an overview of the development of quantum optics and its impact on quantum technologies research. We describe the core theoretical tools developed to express and study the quantum properties of light, the key experimental approaches used to control, manipulate and measure such properties and their application in quantum simulation, and quantum computing.

The US is well behind China on this front, though. A team led by quantum supremo Jian-Wei Pan have already demonstrated a host of breakthroughs in transmitting quantum signals to satellites, most recently developing a mobile quantum satellite station.

The reason both countries are rushing to develop the technology is that it could provide an ultra-secure communication channel in an era where cyberwarfare is becoming increasingly common.

I t’s essentially impossible to eavesdrop on a quantum conversation. The strange rules of quantum mechanics mean that measuring a quantum state immediately changes it, so any message encoded in quantum states will be corrupted if someone tries to intercept it.

A new quantum computer under development is slated to have 1 million qubits – significantly more powerful than Google’s most recent milestone. PsiQuantum Corp., a Silicon Valley company, is developing a photon-based commercial quantum computer that runs on light. The company has raised $215 million from investors with participation from BlackRock Advisors, Founders Fund, Atomico and Redpoint Ventures. The company’s ote.

While a working prototype is estimated to be years away, the advanced technology is aiming to blow away the competition with a far superior machine.

Continue reading “Investors Pour $215 Million Into Quantum Computer Promising 1 Million Qubits – Enough Processing Power to Reshape Nearly Every Industry” »

#quantum #photonics

COPENHAGEN, April 3, 2020 — Using lasers, researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen have developed a way to entangle electromagnetic fields from microwave radiation and optical beams. Creating entanglement between microwave and optical fields could help scientists solve the challenge of sharing entanglement between two distant quantum computers operating in the microwave regime.

PsiQuantum’s photon-based model is still years away, but the company says it’ll be more powerful than Google’s or IBM’s.

Could used for anything to reduce size just like an ant man suit :3.

Scientists can put all kinds of useful materials in the polymer before they shrink it such as metals, quantum dots and DNA. Pictured is the machine used to shrink objects.

The polyacrylate forms the scaffold over which other materials can be attached.

Continue reading “Real life ‘shrink ray’ can reduce 3D structures” »

This could lead to biological teleportation. :3.

Photosynthesis is a highly optimized process from which valuable lessons can be learned about the operating principles in nature. Its primary steps involve energy transport operating near theoretical quantum limits in efficiency. Recently, extensive research was motivated by the hypothesis that nature used quantum coherences to direct energy transfer. This body of work, a cornerstone for the field of quantum biology, rests on the interpretation of small-amplitude oscillations in two-dimensional electronic spectra of photosynthetic complexes. This Review discusses recent work reexamining these claims and demonstrates that interexciton coherences are too short lived to have any functional significance in photosynthetic energy transfer. Instead, the observed long-lived coherences originate from impulsively excited vibrations, generally observed in femtosecond spectroscopy. These efforts, collectively, lead to a more detailed understanding of the quantum aspects of dissipation. Nature, rather than trying to avoid dissipation, exploits it via engineering of exciton-bath interaction to create efficient energy flow.

Over the past decade, the field of quantum biology has seen an enormous increase in activity, with detailed studies of phenomena ranging from the primary processes in vision and photosynthesis to avian navigation (1, 2). In principle, the study of quantum effects in complex biological systems has a history stretching back to the early years of quantum mechanics (3); however, only recently has it truly taken center stage as a scientifically testable concept. While the overall discussion has wide-ranging ramifications, for the purposes of this Review, we will focus on the subfield where the debate is most amenable to direct experimental tests of purported quantum effects—photosynthetic light harvesting.

Continue reading “Quantum biology revisited” »