TECHNOLOGY REVIEW: One of the great goals of applied physics is to make quantum information processing a robust and common technique. To achieve this, physicists will need a simple way of storing and manipulating quantum information, preferably at room temperature.
There is no shortage of possible quantum storage devices but one sits head and shoulders above most others: a nitrogen atom that has replaced a carbon atom in a diamond lattice, an arrangement known as a nitrogen-vacancy centre.
Today, an international team of physicists say they’ve used biological self-assembly techniques to make diamond-based prototypes of the quantum information storage devices of this type. That’s a development that has the potential to profoundly influence the future of computing.
The key to all this is nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond which behave like single atoms. They can store photons, emit them again and interact with other nitrogen-vacancy centres nearby. In fact, their photon storage ability is legendary, holding them, and the information the carry, for periods stretching to milliseconds. At room temperature.
Physics arXiv: Self-assembling hybrid diamond-biological quantum devices
Comments