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French and US scientist share Nobel in Physics for pioneering work in quantum optics

Wednesday, October 10th 2012 - 01:20 UTC
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David Wineland  and Serge Haroche discoveries could lead to super fast and accurate quantum computers David Wineland and Serge Haroche discoveries could lead to super fast and accurate quantum computers

Two scientists one French and an American won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for their pioneering work in quantum optics, a field that manipulates light and matter to measure very precise properties of single particles.

The Nobel committee awarded the prize October 9 to Serge Haroche, of the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, and David Wineland, of the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder, Colo. The two were cited for related but independent work: Haroche bounces light particles between mirrors to probe their quantum states, and Wineland creates traps for charged atoms and shoots in laser light to control those particles.

Discoveries based on those experiments have already been used to develop ultra-accurate atomic clocks and could eventually lead to the development of quantum computers much faster and more secure than existing electron-based technology.

Studying individual particles in the quantum realm is tough because the very act of measurement usually destroys the information being sought. To get around that problem, researchers have developed ways to trap and handle particles delicately while probing them for information about their quantum states.

In 1978, Wineland and his colleagues did some of the first experiments using trapped electrically charged particles, or ions. His team developed ways to cool the ions and extract quantum information from them. Such information, such as the orientation of the ions’ magnetism, may one day be used as a bit of information in quantum computers much as 1s and 0s make up the stream of bits in a classical computer.

Haroche, for his part, uses mirrors to bounce light particles around and store them for a very long time, relatively speaking. Photons can bounce between the two mirrors for more than a tenth of a second before disappearing; during that time they might travel 40,000 kilometres before vanishing.

Like Wineland, Haroche has used his experimental setup to create quantum states inspired by the famous Schroedinger’s cat paradox. In this, a quantum system exists in a superposition of two states (such as the cat being both alive and dead at the same time) until a measurement is made and the system is resolved into one of the two possible states. In 2008, Haroche’s team described creating versions of these states and making a movie as they evolved from the quantum into the everyday world.

 

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  • Idlehands

    I've never been able to get my head round the fact that merely observing something can alter it's disposition. Stop feeding us physics we don't understand and give us a quantum computer.

    Oct 10th, 2012 - 03:59 am 0
  • ChrisR

    @1

    Unless you are:
    1) under 35 YO and;
    2) operating either a super computer or a 'massive' parallel server farm, I doubt you will ever see one.

    I have little doubt they will, eventually, trickle down to small business / domestic use, but not for several decades yet.

    Automatic detection of the state on the fly has not been achieved yet, nevermind the idiot proofing of the hardware that will be necessary for such use. The software problems are insignificant besides those.

    Oct 10th, 2012 - 02:35 pm 0
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