Lifeboat Foundation

Experiments with ultracold magnetic atoms reveal liquid-like quantum droplets that are 20 times larger than previously observed droplets.

Ultracold atoms can exhibit quantum behavior that mimics superfluids and superconductors. Tuning the atom-atom interactions can also reveal never-before-seen phases of matter. Following this approach, researchers working with magnetic atoms in a cigar-shaped trap have generated a single liquid-like macrodroplet, containing 20 times more atoms than in previously observed droplets. The experiment demonstrates that the stability of these droplets is due to quantum fluctuations.

When trapped atoms are cooled to near absolute zero, they form a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), in which their wave functions become coherent. The BEC is a macroscopic quantum object, but some of its quantum behaviors (such as quantum fluctuations) are difficult to observe because their effects are small compared to the mean-field interaction energy in this dilute system. For this reason, researchers are eager to reach parameter regimes where quantum fluctuations reveal themselves.

There is much to be learned from this process for other areas of technology.

Rethink electron microscopy to build quantum materials from scratch, urge Sergei V. Kalinin, Albina Borisevich and Stephen Jesse.

Quantum and Crystalize formations for data storage.

How can you store quantum information as long as possible? A team from the Vienna University of Technology is making an important step forward in the development of quantum storage.

The memory that we use today for our computers differs only between 0 and 1. However, quantum physics also allows arbitrary superimpositions of states. On this principle, the “superposition principle”, ideas for new quantum technologies are based. A key problem, however, is that such quantum-physical overlays are very short-lived. Only a tiny amount of time you can read the information from a quantum memory reliably, then it is irretrievably lost.

Continue reading “New Quantum States For Better Quantum Storage” »

Nice.

Kenji Ohmori (Institute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Japan) has collaborated with Matthias Weidemüller (University of Heidelberg), Guido Pupillo (University of Strasbourg), Claudiu Genes (University of Innsbruck) and their coworkers to develop the world’s fastest simulator that can simulate quantum mechanical dynamics of a large number of particles interacting with each other within one billionths of a second.

Quantum computing is heralded as the next revolution in terms of global computing. Google, Intel and IBM are just some of the big names investing millions currently in the field of quantum computing which will enable faster, more efficient computing required to power our future computing needs.

Now a researcher and his team at Tyndall National Institute in Cork have made a ‘quantum leap’ by developing a technical step that could enable the use of quantum computers sooner than expected.

Conventional digital computing uses ‘on-off’ switches, but quantum computing looks to harness quantum state of matters – such as entangled photons of light or multiple states of atoms – to encode information. In theory, this can lead to much faster and more powerful computer processing, but the technology to underpin quantum computing is currently difficult to develop at scale.

Continue reading “Tyndall Technology Lights the way for Quantum Computing” »

I told folks that we would find that crystalized formations is truly making a difference in the future of QC. There is so much more for us to learn how impactful the formations are in some many areas of communications and technology.

It does make one step back and ponder that perhaps we truly are connected in so many ways as John Wheeler has described many times.

Zinc selenide is a crystal in which atoms are precisely organized, and it is considered a well-known semiconductor material, conducive to introducing tellurium impurities, which can effectively trap positively-charged “holes.” Electron holes are not physical particles like negatively-charged electrons, but can be thought of as the absence of an electron in a particular place in an atom.

Continue reading “Creating Ultrafast Qubits In Zinc Selenide Crystal” »

A new time is upon us.

By Rebecca Boyle.

It’s like catching light in action. For the first time, physicists have measured changes in an atom to the level of zeptoseconds, or trillionths of a billionth of a second – the smallest division of time yet observed.

Continue reading “Smallest sliver of time yet measured sees electrons fleeing atom” »

Canadian reactor designer StarCore Nuclear has applied to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) to begin the vendor design review process for its Generation IV high temperature gas reactor (HTGR).

Montréal-based StarCore, founded in 2008, is focused on developing small modular reactors (SMRs) to provide power and potable water to remote communities in Canada. Its standard HTGR unit would produce 20 MWe (36 MWth), expandable to 100 MWe, from a unit small enough to be delivered by truck. The helium-cooled reactor uses Triso fuel — spherical particles of uranium fuel coated by carbon which effectively gives each tiny particle its own primary containment system — manufactured by BWXT Technologies. Each reactor would require refuelling at five-yearly intervals.

StarCore describes its reactor as “inherently safe”, with a steep negative thermal coefficient which eliminates the possibility of a core meltdown. The use of helium — which does not become radioactive — as a coolant means that any loss of coolant would be “inconsequential”, the company says. The reactors would be embedded 50 metres underground in concrete silos sealed with ten-tonne caps.

Continue reading “Canadian design review for StarCore HTGR” »

Tokamak Energy.

The world needs abundant, clean energy. Nuclear fusion — with no CO₂ emissions, no risk of meltdown and no long-lived radioactive waste — is the obvious solution, but it is very hard to achieve.

The challenge is that fusion only happens in stars, where the huge gravitational force creates pressures and temperatures so intense that usually repulsive particles will collide and fuse; hence “fusion”. On Earth we need to create similar conditions, holding a hot, electrically-charged plasma at high enough pressure for long enough for fusion reactions to occur. The scientific and engineering challenges behind putting a star in a box are large, to say the least. Without proper confinement of the plasma, the reaction would stop. The plasma must be isolated from the walls of the reactor — a feat that can be performed most effectively by magnets. The most advanced machine for this purpose is the ‘tokamak’.

Continue reading “Engineering Fusion Energy By 2025” »