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Category: quantum physics

The high-tech wizardry of integrated photonics

Inspired by the “Harry Potter” stories and the Disney Channel show “Wizards of Waverly Place,” 7-year-old Sabrina Corsetti emphatically declared to her parents one afternoon that she was, in fact, a wizard.

“My dad turned to me and said that, if I really wanted to be a wizard, then I should become a physicist. Physicists are the real wizards of the world,” she recalls.

That conversation stuck with Corsetti throughout her childhood, all the way up to her decision to double-major in physics and math in college, which set her on a path to MIT, where she is now a graduate student in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.

While her work may not involve incantations or magic wands, Corsetti’s research centers on an area that often produces astonishing results: integrated photonics. A relatively young field, integrated photonics involves building computer chips that route light instead of electricity, enabling compact and scalable solutions for applications ranging from communications to sensing.

MIT graduate student Sabrina Corsetti is exploring the cutting edge of integrated photonics, which involves building computer chips that route light instead of electricity. Her projects have included a chip-sized 3D printer and miniaturized optical systems for quantum computing.

Improving randomness may be the key to more powerful quantum computers

Understanding randomness is crucial in many fields. From computer science and engineering to cryptography and weather forecasting, studying and interpreting randomness helps us simulate real-world phenomena, design algorithms and predict outcomes in uncertain situations.

Randomness is also important in quantum computing, but generating it typically involves a large number of operations. However, Thomas Schuster and colleagues at the California Institute of Technology have demonstrated that quantum computers can produce randomness much more easily than previously thought.

And that’s good news because the research could pave the way for faster and more efficient quantum computers.

New Quantum Data Suggests The Butterfly Effect Operates on Galactic Scale

Could a single quantum ripple have shaped the entire universe? This video uncovers the groundbreaking evidence behind the cosmic butterfly effect—where microscopic quantum events influence galaxies, black holes, and even the fate of time itself.

In this episode, we explore how quantum fluctuations during cosmic inflation may have triggered the formation of the Milky Way, why black holes are the most chaotic systems in existence, and how recent discoveries in entanglement, chaos theory, and entropy are rewriting the rules of reality.

🔍 Featuring insights from:

Physical Review Letters (2024): Quantum simulations proving micro-changes alter entire universes.

MIT’s Cosmic Bell Test: Entanglement confirmed over billions of light years.

Quantum equivalent of thermodynamics’ second law discovered for entanglement manipulation

Just over 200 years after French engineer and physicist Sadi Carnot formulated the second law of thermodynamics, an international team of researchers has unveiled an analogous law for the quantum world. This second law of entanglement manipulation proves that, just like heat or energy in an idealized thermodynamics regime, entanglement can be reversibly manipulated, a statement which until now had been heavily contested.

TaIrTe₄ photodetectors show promise for highly sensitive room-temperature THz sensing

Terahertz radiation (THz), electromagnetic radiation with frequencies ranging between 0.1 and 10 THz, could be leveraged to develop various new technologies, including imaging and communication systems. So far, however, a lack of fast and sensitive detectors that can detect radiation across a wide range of frequencies has limited the development of these THz-sensing technologies.

In a recent paper published in Nature Electronics, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the University of Tennessee and other institutes have introduced new photodetectors made of tantalum iridium telluride (TaIrTe₄), a 2D-correlated topological semimetal that exhibits advantageous properties. Most notably, this material exhibits a strong nonlinear Hall effect, a physical effect that entails a transverse voltage in the absence of an external magnetic field, which is nonlinearly proportional to an applied electric field or current.

“THz technology is critical in and biomedical sensing because its frequency resonates with low-energy collective excitations in quantum materials and molecular vibrations in biological matters,” Jun Xiao, senior author of the paper, told Phys.org.

Quantum machine learning improves semiconductor manufacturing for first time

Semiconductor processing is notoriously challenging. It is one of the most intricate feats of modern engineering due to the extreme precision required and the hundreds of steps involved, such as etching and layering, to make even a single chip.

Physicists create tunable system for enhanced quantum sensing

Researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, have developed a tunable system that paves the way for more accurate sensing in a variety of technologies, including biomedical diagnostics. The result is published in Nature.

The potential range of technologies is large, stretching from the largest to smallest scales, from detecting gravitational waves in space to sensing the tiny fluctuations in our own bodies.

Optical sensing technologies are already part of everyday life. In recent years, advances in have pushed the sensitivity of these devices closer to the so-called standard quantum limit—a practical boundary that arises from the inevitable noise arising from measuring on the smallest scales.

“There is only one interpretation of quantum mechanics” | David Deutsch FULL INTERVIEW

David Deutsch, known as the ‘father of quantum computing’, explains how accepting the reality of quantum mechanics means accepting the multiverse.

How are the branches of a multiverse different from each other?

With a free trial, you can watch David Deutsch debate infinity with George Ellis and Sara Walker at https://iai.tv/video/the-edge-of-the-universe?utm_source=You…of-reality.

The many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics says that all possible outcomes of quantum measurements are physically realised in different worlds. These many worlds have proved extremely contentious, with critics arguing that they are mere fantasy. In this exclusive interview, leading physicist David Deutsch explains the philosophy behind the many-worlds interpretation and argues that not only is it the best interpretation of quantum mechanics – it is the only interpretation.

#quantum #quantummechanics #quantumphysics #quantumcomputing.

David Deutsch is a theoretical physicist best known as the founding father of quantum computation and as a key figure and advocate for the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Deutsch is a Visiting Professor of physics at the Centre for Quantum Computation and the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford University. Interviewed by Charlie Barnett, Senior Producer at the IAI.

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