Category Archives: Quantum Computing

Among the 2021 predictions? After a year of skepticism, organizations will maximize the potential of 5G with edge technologies. (Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)

What might 2021 bring in term of technology?

Community and market experts found consensus on a few areas. First, cloud security will dominate strategies and investments even more that it did during 2020, as organizations big and small go all in on digital transformation. And second, technologies once deemed on the horizon think automation, 5G and even the much hyped artificial intelligence will officially arrive.

SC Media collected predictions across a range of categories from cybersecurity experts. Here we give you the tech roundup. Check back during the next couple of weeks to see community predictions for the threat landscape, strategic priorities, and privacy policy.

Tech Automated control testing improves audit efficiency, says Jon Siegler, chief product officer at LogicGate:

While [Robotic process automation] has been more fruitful for [governance, risk management and compliance] than AI, there are new use cases for AI emerging. One in particular that many companies will begin looking to is AI for automated control testing. For various certifications of compliance like SOC 2 and FEDRAMP, companies must submit evidence to auditors proving that their controls are effective. This is traditionally a very tedious process that involves many people and a highly coordinated effort. AI will begin to help automate that evidence collection process, making it easier for organizations to keep up with reapplications for certifications.

AI will play an increasing role into the future, says Hal Lonas, chief technology officer at Webroot:

While the good guys are using AI to make the workforce more productive, the bad guys are finding AIs weaknesses and exploiting them every chance they get. One example is the increasing sophistication of deep fake videos and images. There are also numerous fake posting bots participating on blogs and forums, that are sophisticated enough to push left-wing or right-wing agendas, based on their programming. We know there are foreign governments who experiment with these capabilities to change public opinion and nudge elections to suit their purposes.

IT will infuse access governance with intelligence to protect workforce cybersecurity in 2021, says Eve Maler, CTO at ForgeRock:

In 2021, we will see AI increasingly employed to enable an autonomous identity approach. AI-infused authentication and authorization solutions will be layered on top of, or integrated with, existing IGA solutions, providing contextual, enterprise-wide visibility by collecting and analyzing all identity data, and enabling insight into different risk levels of user access at scale. The use of AI will allow systems to identify and alert security and compliance teams about high-risk access or policy violations. Over time we will see these AI systems produce explainable results while increasing automation of some of the most difficult cybersecurity challenges inside the enterprise.

2021 will mean maximizing the potential of 5G with edge technologies, says James Kretchmar,vice president CTO ofAkamai TechnologiesInc.:

More 5G roll-outs next year means more devices connecting to the Internet at higher speeds. But faster connections alone dont make for better performance. If content is positioned far from the mobile device, it still must traverse network after network across the Internet where each hop is a bottleneck that can become congested and ruin the user experience. One way to overcome this is to leverage edge technologies which bring the content close to the user, reducing the distance the data must travel. As such, edge technologies like CDNs will become even more essential in 2021.

Finally, the year of cloud security arrives, says Gidi Cohen, CEO and co-founder of Skybox Security:

Cloud security adoption has been limited as of late, but thanks to the mass migration spawned by COVID-19, companies had no other choice but to leap before looking to the cloud to maintain business continuity and ensure survival. Expect to see a more secure organization that typically favors the private cloud to move into the realm of public cloud. As a result, we will see faster adoption of cloud security technologies, as well as more engaged security teams ones that take ownership. This will lead to better security posture management overall across the cloud, as well as on-premises, data centers and everything in between.

Quantum computing will become the next WannaCry for malicious actors, says Gaurav Banga, CEO and founder ofBalbix:

Quantum computing is likely to become practical soon, with the capability to break many encryption algorithms. Organizations should plan to upgrade to TLS 1.3 and quantum-safe cryptographic ciphers soon. Big tech vendors Google and Microsoft will make updates to web browsers, but the server-side is for your organization to review and change. Kick off a Y2K like project to identify and fix your organizations encryption before it is too late.

Automation continues to be a priority, but human context will be the key to security program management and success, says Florindo Gallicchio, managing director atNetSPI:

By now, we all understand the value automation brings to any security tool. Yet, in 2021, the human element will be pushed to the forefront of security innovation, specifically for our intellect and ability to add context to security findings. Contextualizing security findings will be an invaluable tool to boost remediation efforts in the new year, as the number of vulnerabilities remains exponential and context is key to helping us prioritize.

Addressing bias in AI algorithms will be a top priority, causing guidelines to be rolled out for machine learning support of ethnicity for facial recognition, saysRobert Prigge, CEO of Jumio:

Enterprises are becoming increasingly concerned about demographic bias in AI algorithms (race, age, gender) and its effect on their brand and potential to raise legal issues. Evaluating how vendors address demographic bias will become a top priority when selecting identity proofing solutions in 2021. Organizations will increasingly need to have clear answers to organizations who want to know how a vendors AI black box was built, where the data originated from and how representative the training data is to the broader population being served.

Governments will start to turn their regulatory eye to machine learning, hoping to mitigate the negative impact of its use, says FlorianDouetteau, CEO at Dataiku:

The European Union is leading the way with planned legislation to define the acceptable uses of various forms of AI. This is not necessarily about reducing use for example, regulation may enable beneficial applications of facial recognition technology that are currently restricted by data privacy regulations. But what is clear is that businesses will have to take heed of yet more regulation when applying ML.

Cloud-native security M&A on the horizon, saysAlyssa Miller,cybersecurity advocate atSnyk:

The market today is flooded with niche tools that serve a specific technology need. Starting in 2021, we will see an increase of M&A activity in the security industry aimed at unifying these point solutions to support an overarching cloud-native security portfolio. The companies who are best positioned for the future of cloud computing and security will be able to unite niche tools with the infrastructure and distribution of enterprise scale.

Organizations will consolidate and integrate tools to achieve zero trust, says Jason Soroko, CTO of PKI at Sectigo:

You cant go out and buy DevOps or zero trust. Theyre a set of principles, not a singular product. Technologies now are carefully crafted to align with these principles to meet zero trust architecture and DevOps/DevSecOps philosophies; however, in order to make the lives of customers easier, well see a trend toward the integration of these tools.Companies will combine the principles and policies of each of these concepts to create one technology. Rather than piecing together solutions themselves and buying new products to cobble together, companies will create solutions that ultimately make their customers lives easier.

Well continue to see amplified cloud and SaaS adoption as remote working drives new requirements for more digital services, better on-line experiences, and on-demand access to information, says Carolyn Crandall, chief security advocate and chief marketing officer at Attivo Networks:

Hybrid cloud and multi-cloud requirements will drive a transformation of infrastructure and security best practices. There will be an increased need to extend and link governance across all environments and a need to have more standardization and security control around cloud identity and access management. This will include a wider adoption of cloud infrastructure entitlements management (CIEM), which will be required for managing and reducing risks related to identity and cloud access management.

Realizing 5G comes from realizing test, says James Kimery, vice president of product management, Connected Devices:

The role of test in 5G is essential. If you do not have a third-party arbiter, then interoperability is simply impossible and interoperability is the key to opening up the 5G ecosystem in the new year. The cost of test will likely increase in 2021, and while this poses an opportunity for some companies to increase cost of delivery, there will be more options available than ever before. If organizations looking to implement test take their time assessing the options, they will see a benefit to the increasingly competitive market. Getting ahead of the testing trend, which I predict will become ingrained in even more compliance measures in the coming year, is key in realizing the promise of 5G, open RAN and related deployments.

AI will gain momentum in cloud security and governance, says Keith Neilson, technical evangelist forCloudSphere:

In 2021, AI will go far beyond simply detecting anomalies and thereby flagging potential threats to security teams. Cloud governance is an increasingly complex task and is quickly reaching a point where its impossible for humans to manage alone. AI will increasingly be relied on in the coming year to maintain cloud hygiene by streamlining workflows, managing changes and archiving. Once proper cloud hygiene is established and maintained with AI, it will also be used as a strategic predictive knowledge tool. By predicting and addressing threats and vulnerabilities, AI will help enterprises create the best possible outcome for their cloud environments. Leveraging AI as a strategic asset will empower CIOs to make informed decisions about their cloud environments, such as evaluating costs and compliance risks.

There will be increased adoption of technology that capitalizes on artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate key security functions, saysRohini Kasturi, chief product officer at Pulse Secure:

COVID-19 resulted in a massive, global shift to a remote workforce. However, next year we will enter a completely new normal when we start to see more workers return to the office while others, who are not yet able or willing to make the transition, remain home. This will result in a split that forces IT departments to handle the demands of both full-scale on-premise and full-scale remote access. The only way to be efficient in the new world of work will be to utilize solutions with automation capabilities instead of relying solely on in-house security teams.

Service mesh vendor consolidation will start in 2021, says Liz Rice, VP of open source engineering at Aqua Security:

Many organizations have been early adopters of service mesh technologies to automate and standardize functionality that would otherwise have to be implemented in application code. While particularly helpful for things like setting up observability and secure connections between components, most would agree there are now too many solutions in use. Organizations will rationalize their service mesh implementations, choosing those that give them what they need, and perform well, with a minimum of complexity.

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2021 tech predictions: The conceptual gets real - SC Magazine

Tyler Cowen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of economics at George Mason University and writes for the blog Marginal Revolution. His books include The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream.

Maybe they had theright idea.

Photographer: David Dee Delgado/Getty Images North America

Photographer: David Dee Delgado/Getty Images North America

For obvious reasons, 2020 will not go down as a good year. At the same time, it has brought more scientific progress than any year in recent memory and these advances will last long after Covid-19 as a major threat is gone.

Two of the most obvious and tangible signs of progress are the mRNA vaccines now being distributedacross America and around the world. These vaccines appear to have very high levels of efficacy and safety, and they can be produced more quickly than more conventional vaccines. They are the main reason to have a relatively optimistic outlook for 2021. The mRNA technology also may have broader potential, for instance by helping to mend damaged hearts.

Other advances in the biosciences may prove no less stunning. A very promising vaccine candidate against malaria, perhaps the greatest killer in human history, is in the final stages of testing. Advances in vaccine technology have created the real possibility of a universal flu vaccine, and work is proceeding on that front. New CRISPR techniques appear on the verge of vanquishing sickle-cell anemia, and other CRISPR methods have allowed scientists to create a new smartphone-based diagnostic test that would detect viruses and offer diagnoses within half an hour.

It has been a good year for artificial intelligence as well. GPT-3 technology allows for the creation of remarkably human-like writing of great depth and complexity. It is a major step toward the creation of automated entities that can react in very human ways. DeepMind, meanwhile, has used computational techniques to make major advances in protein folding. This is a breakthrough in biology that may lead to the easier discovery of new pharmaceuticals.

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One general precondition behind many of these advances is the decentralized access to enormous computing power, typically through cloud computing. China seems to be progressing with a photon method for quantum computing, a development that is hard to verify but could prove to be of great importance.

Computational biology, in particular, is booming. The Moderna vaccine mRNA was designed in two days, and without access to Covid-19 itself, a remarkable achievement that would not have been possible only a short while ago. This likely heralds the arrival of many other future breakthroughs from computational biology.

Internet access itself will be spreading. Starlink, for example, has a plausible plan to supply satellite-based internet connections to the entire world.

It also has been a good year for progress in transportation.

Driverless vehicles appeared to be stalled, but Walmart will be using them on some truck deliveries in 2021. Boom, a startup that is pushing to develop feasible and affordable supersonic flight, now has a valuation of over $1 billion, with prototypes expected next year. SpaceX achieved virtually every launch and rocket goal it had announced for the year. Toyota and other companies have announced major progress on batteries for electric vehicles, and the related products are expected to debut in 2021.

All this will prove a boon for the environment, as will progress in solar power, which in many settings is as cheap as any relevant alternative. China is opening a new and promising fusion reactor. Despite the absence of a coherent U.S. national energy policy, the notion of a mostly green energy future no longer appears utopian.

In previous eras, advances in energy and transportation typically have brought further technological advances, by enabling humans to conquer and reshape their physical environments in new and unexpected ways. We can hope that general trend will continue.

Finally, while not quite meeting the definition of a scientific advance, the rise of remote work is a real breakthrough. Many more Zoom meetings will be held, and many business trips will never return. Many may see this as a mixed blessing, but it will improve productivity significantly. It will be easier to hire foreign workers, easier for tech or finance workers to move to Miami, and easier to live in New Jersey and commute into Manhattan only once a week. The most productive employees will be able to work from home more easily.

Without a doubt, it has been a tragic year. Alongside the sadness and failure, however, there has been quite a bit of progress. Thats something worth keeping in mind, even if we cant quite bring ourselves to celebrate, as we look back on 2020.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:Tyler Cowen at tcowen2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:Michael Newman at mnewman43@bloomberg.net

Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal.

Tyler Cowen is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is a professor of economics at George Mason University and writes for the blog Marginal Revolution. His books include The Complacent Class: The Self-Defeating Quest for the American Dream.

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The Silver Lining of 2020* - Bloomberg

Spinning atoms in a magnetic field notoriously behave in ways that scientists are yet to understand entirely. New research from MIT has now shed some light on the obscure laws that govern the smallest of particles, which could pave the way for further developments in the design of quantum devices that rely on atomic spin.

The team exposed spinning lithium atoms to magnetic forces of different strengths to observe how the quantum particles reacted both individually and as a group. They were faced in each scenario with a surprising choreography of atoms, revealing unexpected diversity of behavior in a well-known and studied magnetic material.

Spin, like mass or charge, is an intrinsic property of atoms: the particles rotate around an axis in either a clockwise manner (often described as "down") or anticlockwise ("up"). Based on their spin, atoms can react to magnetic fields in different ways, for example by aligning themselves with other atoms in a specific pattern.

SEE: Managing AI and ML in the enterprise 2020: Tech leaders increase project development and implementation (TechRepublic Premium)

The spin of many atoms together in a magnetic material that is exposed to a magnetic field can reach an equilibrium state, where all the atom spins are aligned; or the atoms can adopt dynamic behavior, where the spins across many atoms create a wave-like pattern.

MIT's research team focused on the way that atoms evolve from dynamic behavior back into an equilibrium state and found that the magnetic force that the atoms are exposed to plays a key part in determining the particles' behavior. Some magnets triggered a so-called "ballistic" behavior, where the atomic spins shot quickly back into an equilibrium state, while others revealed "diffusive behavior", with the particles spinning back to equilibrium in a much slower fashion.

"Studying one of the simplest magnetic materials, we have advanced the understanding of magnetism," said Wolfgang Ketterle, professor of physics at MIT and the leader of the research team. "When you find new phenomena in one of the simplest models in physics for magnetism, then you have a chance to fully describe and understand it. This is what gets me out of bed in the morning, and gets me excited."

To study the phenomenon, Ketterle's team brought the lithium atoms down to temperatures more than ten times colder than interstellar space, which freezes the particles to a near standstill and enables easier observation. Using lasers as a type of tweezer, the scientists then grabbed the atoms and arranged them into strings of beads. With 1,000 strings, each comprising 40 atoms, the team created an ultra-cold 40,000-strong atom lattice.

Pulsed magnetic forces of different strengths were then applied to the lattice, causing each atom along the string to tilt its spin in a wavelike manner. The researchers were able to image those wave patterns on a detector, and watched how the atoms gradually evolved from dynamic behavior to equilibrium, depending on the nature of the magnetic field that they were exposed to.

The process, explained Ketterle, is similar to plucking a guitar's strings: playing the strings brings them out of their equilibrium condition, and allows the scientists to watch what happens before they return to their original state.

"What we're doing here is, we're kind of plucking the string of spins. We're putting in this helix pattern, and then observing how this pattern behaves as a function of time," Ketterle said. "This allows us to see the effect of different magnetic forces between the spins."

Although some of this behavior had been theoretically predicted in the past, detailed observation of patterns of atomic spins had never been observed in detail until now. These patterns, however, were found to fit an existing mathematical model called the Heisenberg model, which is commonly used to predict magnetic behavior.

SEE: Quantum computers are coming. Get ready for them to change everything

Together with a team of scientists at Harvard, MIT's researchers were able to calculate the spin's dynamics. The results, therefore, aren't only useful to advance the knowledge of magnetism at a fundamental level; but they could also be used as a blueprint for a device that could predict the properties and behaviors of new materials at the quantum level.

"With all of the current excitement about the promise of quantum information science to solve practical problems in the future, it is great to see work like this actually coming to fruition today," said John Gillaspy, program officer in the Division of Physics at the National Science Foundation, and a funder of the research.

A higher-level understanding of quantum particles could also lead to the design of new technologies, such as spintronic devices, according to the researchers. Unlike electronics, which leverage the flow of electrons, spintronics tap the spin of quantum particles to transmit, process and store information. They hold promise, therefore, for quantum computing, where the spin of particles would constitute a bit of quantum information.

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Quantum computing: Strings of ultracold atoms reveal the surprising behavior of quantum particles - ZDNet

Anyon Systems's Quantum Computer

Anyon System's superconducting quantum processor.

MONTREAL, Dec. 15, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Anyon Systems Inc. (Anyon), a quantum computing company based in Montreal, Canada, announced today that it is to deliver Canadas first gate-based quantum computer for the Department of National Defenses Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC). The quantum computer will feature Anyons Yukon generation superconducting quantum processor. Named after Canadas westernmost territory, the quantum computer will enable DRDC researchers to explore quantum computing to solve problems of interest to their mission.

Quantum computing is expected to be a disruptive technology and is of strategic importance to many industries and government agencies. Anyon is focused on delivering large-scale, fault-tolerant quantum computers to a wide group of early adopters including government agencies, high performance computing centers and universities in the near term, said Dr. Alireza Yazdi, founder and CEO of Anyon.

About Anyon Systems

Founded in 2014, Anyon Systems is the first Canadian company manufacturing gate-based quantum computing platform for universal quantum computation. Anyon Systems delivers turnkey gate-based quantum computers. The company is headquartered in Montreal, Quebec.

Media Contact:media@anyonsys.com

A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/7c776a6e-2ef8-4875-b33a-06c3ccf9f8df

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Anyon Systems to Deliver a Quantum Computer to the Canadian Department of National Defense - GlobeNewswire

Physicists have confirmed the existence of an extraordinary, flat particle that could be the key that unlocks quantum computing.

Get unlimited access to the weird world of Pop Mech.

What is the rare and improbable anyon, and how on Earth did scientists verify them?

[T]hese particle-like objects only arise in realms confined to two dimensions, and then only under certain circumstanceslike at temperatures near absolute zero and in the presence of a strong magnetic field, Discover explains.

Scientists have theorized about these flat, peculiar particle-like objects since the 1980s, and the very nature of them has made it sometimes seem impossible to ever verify them. But the qualities scientists believe anyons have also made them sound very valuable to quantum research and, now, quantum computers.

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The objects have many possible positions and "remember," in a way, what has happened. In a press release earlier this fall, Purdue University explains more about the value of anyons:

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Its these fractional charges that let scientists finally design the exact right experiments to shake loose the real anyons. A coin sorter is a good analogy for a lot of things, and this time is no different: scientists had to find the right series of sorting ideas in order to build one experimental setup that would, ultimately, only register the anyons. And having the unique quality of fractional charges gave them, at least, a beginning to work on those experiments.

Following an April paper about using a miniature particle accelerator to notice anyons, in July, researchers from Purdue published their findings after using a microchip etched to route particles through a maze that phased out all other particles. The maze combined an interferometera device that uses waves to measure what interferes with themwith a specially designed chip that activates anyons at a state.

Purdue University

What results is a measurable phenomenon called anyonic braiding. This is surprising and good, because it confirms the particle-like anyons exhibit this particular particle behavior, and because braiding as a behavior has potential for quantum computing. Electrons also braid, but researchers werent certain the much weaker charge of anyons would exhibit the same behavior.

Braiding isnt just for electrons and anyons, either: photons do it, too. "Braiding is a topological phenomenon that has been traditionally associated with electronic devices," photon researcher Mikael Rechtsman said in October.

He continued:

Now, the quantum information toolkit includes electrons, protons, and what Discover calls these strange in-betweeners: the anyons.

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This Incredible Particle Only Arises in Two Dimensions - Popular Mechanics

DUBLIN and PARIS, Dec. 17, 2020 Atos today announces it will deliver its first GPU-acceleratedAtos Quantum Learning Machine Enhanced(Atos QLM E), the worlds highest-performing commercially available quantum simulator, to the Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC).

The Atos QLM E will be integrated with the Irish national supercomputer Kay and equipped with a variety of quantum software programming tools. As a hybrid HPC-Quantum Computing environment, the integrated Kay-Atos QLM E platform will serve theQuantum Programming Ireland (QPI) Initiativefor conducting R&D and national-level skills development activities in quantum technologies by ICHEC as well as other Irish organizations in academic, enterprise and public sector.

Offering up to 12 times more computation speed than the original Atos QLM, the Atos QLM E is also an integral component of the NEASQC project, in the 1 bn European flagship quantum initiative, of which Ireland is a partner along with 11 other European companies and research labs, andcoordinated by Atos.

Once the Atos QLM E is delivered on-premise, Atos will provide a fast-track training program and continue to enhance the system throughout its lifetime to ensure that it delivers the functionality required in this fast-moving discipline of quantum computing.

Prof. Jean-Christophe (JC) Desplat, Director at ICHEC, said:As Irelands high performance computing authority, were committed to using the power of technology to solve some of the toughest challenges across public, academic and enterprise sectors. Working with a number of partners across Europe, we look forward to utilizing the Atos QLM E related for R&D on a number of scientific and industry-relevant quantum computing use-casesand supporting scientific breakthroughs in high-performance computing.

Agns Boudot, Senior Vice President, Head of HPC & Quantum at Atos, said:As the first Atos QLM E deployed globally, this partnership marks an important milestone in our Quantum Program. We look forward to supporting ICHEC on their quantum journey, helping them explore with their users the huge potential that quantum computing offers. The solution will provide a scalable, future-proof, national framework for the porting of hybrid applications, and for the training and skills development of Irish researchers, and ICHECs partners across Europe.

Atos QLM E has been optimized to drastically reduce the simulation time of hybrid classical-quantum algorithms simulations, leading to quicker progress in application research.

Atos, a pioneer in quantum

In 2016, Atos launched Atos Quantum an ambitiousprogram to anticipate the future of quantum computing. As a result of this initiative,Atos was the first organization to offer aquantum noise simulation modulewithin its Atos QLM offer. Atos QLM is being used in numerous countries worldwide includingAustria,Finland,France,Germany,India, Italy,Japan,the Netherlands, Senegal,UKand theUnited States, empowering major research programs in various sectors like industry orenergy. Recently, Atos introduced Q-score, the first universal quantum metrics reference, applicable to all programmable quantum processors.

Source: Atos

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Atos Delivers Its First GPU-Accelerated Quantum Learning Machine to the Irish Centre for High-End Computing - HPCwire

Dec. 18, 2020 Super-fast quantum computers and communication devices could revolutionize countless aspects of our livesbut first, researchers need a fast, efficient source of the entangled pairs of photons such systems use to transmit and manipulate information. Researchers at Stevens Institute of Technology have done just that, not only creating a chip-based photon source 100 times more efficient that previously possible, but bringing massive quantum device integration within reach.

Its long been suspected that this was possible in theory, but were the first to show it in practice, said Yuping Huang, Gallagher associate professor of physics and director of the Center for Quantum Science and Engineering.

To createphoton pairs, researchers trap light in carefully sculpted nanoscale microcavities; as light circulates in the cavity, its photons resonate and split into entangled pairs. But theres a catch: at present, such systems are extremely inefficient, requiring a torrent of incoming laser light comprising hundreds of millions of photons before a single entangled photon pair will grudgingly drip out at the other end.

Huang and colleagues at Stevens have now developed a new chip-based photon source thats 100 times more efficient than any previous device, allowing the creation of tens of millions of entangled photon pairs per second from a single microwatt-powered laser beam.

This is a huge milestone for quantum communications, said Huang, whose work will appear in the Dec. 17 issue ofPhysical Review Letters.

Working with Stevens graduate students Zhaohui Ma and Jiayang Chen, Huang built on his laboratorys previous research to carve extremely high-quality microcavities into flakes of lithium niobate crystal. The racetrack-shaped cavities internally reflect photons with very little loss of energy, enabling light to circulate longer and interact with greater efficiency.

By fine-tuning additional factors such as temperature, the team was able to create an unprecedentedly bright source of entangled photon pairs. In practice, that allows photon pairs to be produced in far greater quantities for a given amount of incoming light, dramatically reducing the energy needed to power quantum components.

The team is already working on ways to further refine their process, and say they expect to soon attain the true Holy Grail of quantum optics: a system with that can turn a single incoming photon into an entangled pair of outgoing photons, with virtually no waste energy along the way. Its definitely achievable, said Chen. At this point we just need incremental improvements.

Until then, the team plans to continue refining their technology, and seeking ways to use theirphotonsource to drive logic gates and other quantum computing or communication components. Because this technology is already chip-based, were ready to start scaling up by integrating other passive or active optical components, explained Huang.

The ultimate goal, Huang said, is to make quantum devices so efficient and cheap to operate that they can be integrated into mainstream electronic devices. We want to bring quantum technology out of the lab, so that it can benefit every single one of us, he explained. Someday soon we want kids to have quantum laptops in their backpacks, and were pushing hard to make that a reality.

More information:Ultrabright quantum photon sources on chip,Physical Review Letters(2020).arxiv.org/abs/2010.04242,journals.aps.org/prl/accepted/ da6c4d64a454565839ae

Source: Stevens Institute of Technology

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Chip-Based Photon Source Is 100X More Efficient than Previous, Bringing Quantum Integration Within Reach - HPCwire

Electrons inhabit a strange and topsy-turvy world. These infinitesimally small particles have never ceased to amaze and mystify despite the more than a century that scientists have studied them. Now, in an even more amazing twist, physicists have discovered that, under certain conditions, interacting electrons can create what are called topological quantum states. This finding, which was recently published in the journal Nature,holds great potential for revolutionizing electrical engineering, materials science and especially computer science.

Topological states of matter are particularly intriguing classes of quantum phenomena. Their study combines quantum physics with topology, which is the branch of theoretical mathematics that studies geometric properties that can be deformed but not intrinsically changed. Topological quantum states first came to the publics attention in 2016 when three scientists Princetons Duncan Haldane, who is Princetons Thomas D. Jones Professor of Mathematical Physics and Sherman Fairchild University Professor of Physics, together with David Thouless and Michael Kosterlitz were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work in uncovering the role of topology in electronic materials.

A Princeton-led team of physicists have discovered that, under certain conditions, interacting electrons can create what are called topological quantum states, which,has implications for many technological fields of study, especially information technology. To get the desired quantum effect, the researchersplaced two sheets of graphene on top of each other with the top layer twisted at the "magic" angle of 1.1 degrees, whichcreates a moir pattern. This diagram shows a scanning tunneling microscopeimaging the magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene.

Image courtesy of Kevin Nuckolls

The last decade has seen quite a lot of excitement about new topological quantum states of electrons, said Ali Yazdani, the Class of 1909 Professor of Physics at Princeton and the senior author of the study. Most of what we have uncovered in the last decade has been focused on how electrons get these topological properties, without thinking about them interacting with one another.

But by using a material known as magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene, Yazdani and his team were able to explore how interacting electrons can give rise to surprising phases of matter.

The remarkable properties of graphene were discovered two years ago when Pablo Jarillo-Herrero and his team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) used it to induce superconductivity a state in which electrons flow freely without any resistance. The discovery was immediately recognized as a new material platform for exploring unusual quantum phenomena.

Yazdani and his fellow researchers were intrigued by this discovery and set out to further explore the intricacies of superconductivity.

But what they discovered led them down a different and untrodden path.

This was a wonderful detour that came out of nowhere, said Kevin Nuckolls, the lead author of the paper and a graduate student in physics. It was totally unexpected, and something we noticed that was going to be important.

Following the example of Jarillo-Herrero and his team, Yazdani, Nuckolls and the other researchers focused their investigation on twisted bilayer graphene.

Its really a miracle material, Nuckolls said. Its a two-dimensional lattice of carbon atoms thats a great electrical conductor and is one of the strongest crystals known.

Graphene is produced in a deceptively simple but painstaking manner: a bulk crystal of graphite, the same pure graphite in pencils, is exfoliated using sticky tape to remove the top layers until finally reaching a single-atom-thin layer of carbon, with atoms arranged in a flat honeycomb lattice pattern.

To get the desired quantum effect, the Princeton researchers, following the work of Jarillo-Herrero, placed two sheets of graphene on top of each other with the top layer angled slightly. This twisting creates a moir pattern, which resembles and is named after a common French textile design. The important point, however, is the angle at which the top layer of graphene is positioned: precisely 1.1 degrees, the magic angle that produces the quantum effect.

Its such a weird glitch in nature, Nuckolls said, that it is exactly this one angle that needs to be achieved. Angling the top layer of graphene at 1.2 degrees, for example, produces no effect.

The researchers generated extremely low temperatures and created a slight magnetic field. They then used a machine called a scanning tunneling microscope, which relies on a technique called quantum tunneling rather than light to view the atomic and subatomic world. They directed the microscopes conductive metal tip on the surface of the magic-angle twisted graphene and were able to detect the energy levels of the electrons.

They found that the magic-angle graphene changed how electrons moved on the graphene sheet. It creates a condition which forces the electrons to be at the same energy, said Yazdani. We call this a flat band.

When electrons have the same energy are in a flat band material they interact with each other very strongly. This interplay can make electrons do many exotic things, Yazdani said.

One of these exotic things, the researchers discovered, was the creation of unexpected and spontaneous topological states.

This twisting of the graphene creates the right conditions to create a very strong interaction between electrons, Yazdani explained. And this interaction unexpectedly favors electrons to organize themselves into a series of topological quantum states.

The researchers discovered that the interaction between electrons creates topological insulators:unique devices that whose interiors do not conduct electricity but whose edges allow the continuous and unimpeded movement ofelectrons. This diagram depicts thedifferent insulating states of the magic-angle graphene, each characterized by an integer called its Chern number, which distinguishes between different topological phases.

Image courtesy of Kevin Nuckolls

Specifically, they discovered that the interaction between electrons creates what are called topological insulators. These are unique devices that act as insulators in their interiors, which means that the electrons inside are not free to move around and therefore do not conduct electricity. However, the electrons on the edges are free to move around, meaning they are conductive. Moreover, because of the special properties of topology, the electrons flowing along the edges are not hampered by any defects or deformations. They flow continuously and effectively circumvent the constraints such as minute imperfections in a materials surface that typically impede the movement of electrons.

During the course of the work, Yazdanis experimental group teamed up two other Princetonians Andrei Bernevig, professor of physics, and Biao Lian, assistant professor of physics to understand the underlying physical mechanism for their findings.

Our theory shows that two important ingredients interactions and topology which in nature mostly appear decoupled from each other, combine in this system, Bernevig said. This coupling creates the topological insulator states that were observed experimentally.

Although the field of quantum topology is relatively new, itcouldtransform computer science. People talk a lot about its relevance to quantum computing, where you can use these topological quantum states to make better types of quantum bits, Yazdani said. The motivation for what were trying to do is to understand how quantum information can be encoded inside a topological phase. Research in this area is producing exciting new science and can have potential impact in advancing quantum information technologies.

Yazdani and his team will continue their research into understanding how the interactions of electrons give rise to different topological states.

The interplay between the topology and superconductivity in this material system is quite fascinating and is something we will try to understand next, Yazdani said.

In addition to Yazdani, Nuckolls, Bernevig and Lian, contributors to the study included co-first authors Myungchul Oh and Dillon Wong, postdoctoral research associates, as well as Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi of the National Institute for Material Science in Japan.

Strongly Correlated Chern Insulators in Magic-Angle Twisted Bilayer Graphene, by Kevin P. Nuckolls, Myungchul Oh, Dillon Wong, Biao Lian, Kenji Watanabe, Takashi Taniguchi, B. Andrei Bernevig and Ali Yazdani, was published Dec. 14 in the journal Nature (DOI:10.1038/s41586-020-3028-8). This work was primarily supported by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundations EPiQS initiative (GBMF4530, GBMF9469) and the Department of Energy (DE-FG02-07ER46419 and DE-SC0016239). Other support for the experimental work was provided by the National Science Foundation (Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers through the Princeton Center for Complex Materials (NSF-DMR-1420541, NSF-DMR-1904442) and EAGER DMR-1643312), ExxonMobil through the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton, the Princeton Catalysis Initiative, the Elemental Strategy Initiative conducted by Japans Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (JPMXP0112101001, JSPS KAKENHI grant JP20H0035, and CREST JPMJCR15F3), the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science at Princeton University, the Simons Foundation, the Packard Foundation, the Schmidt Fund for Innovative Research, BSF Israel US foundation (2018226), the Office of Naval Research (N00014-20-1-2303) and the Princeton Global Network Funds.

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'Magic' angle graphene and the creation of unexpected topological quantum states - Princeton University

Atomic-scale image of two interacting donors in silicon. Credit: CQC2T

Australian researchers have located the sweet spot for positioning qubits in silicon to scale up atom-based quantum processors.

Researchers from the Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (CQC2T) working with Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC) have located the sweet spot for positioning qubits in silicon to scale up atom-based quantum processors.

Creating quantum bits, or qubits, by precisely placing phosphorus atoms in silicon the method pioneered by CQC2T Director Professor Michelle Simmons is a world-leading approach in the development of a silicon quantum computer.

In the teams research, published today in Nature Communications, precision placement has proven to be essential for developing robust interactions or coupling between qubits.

Weve located the optimal position to create reproducible, strong and fast interactions between the qubits, says Professor Sven Rogge, who led the research.

We need these robust interactions to engineer a multi-qubit processor and, ultimately, a useful quantum computer.

Two-qubit gates the central building block of a quantum computer use interactions between pairs of qubits to perform quantum operations. For atom qubits in silicon, previous research has suggested that for certain positions in the silicon crystal, interactions between the qubits contain an oscillatory component that could slow down the gate operations and make them difficult to control.

For almost two decades, the potential oscillatory nature of the interactions has been predicted to be a challenge for scale-up, Prof. Rogge says.

Now, through novel measurements of the qubit interactions, we have developed a deep understanding of the nature of these oscillations and propose a strategy of precision placement to make the interaction between the qubits robust. This is a result that many believed was not possible.

Finding the sweet spot in crystal symmetries

The researchers say theyve now uncovered that exactly where you place the qubits is essential to creating strong and consistent interactions. This crucial insight has significant implications for the design of large-scale processors.

Silicon is an anisotropic crystal, which means that the direction the atoms are placed in can significantly influence the interactions between them, says Dr. Benoit Voisin, lead author of the research.

While we already knew about this anisotropy, no one had explored in detail how it could actually be used to mitigate the oscillating interaction strength.

We found that there is a special angle, or sweet spot, within a particular plane of the silicon crystal where the interaction between the qubits is most resilient. Importantly, this sweet spot is achievable using existing scanning tunnelling microscope (STM) lithography techniques developed at UNSW.

In the end, both the problem and its solution directly originate from crystal symmetries, so this is a nice twist.

Using a STM, the team are able to map out the atoms wave function in 2D images and identify their exact spatial location in the silicon crystal first demonstrated in 2014 with research published in Nature Materials and advanced in a 2016 Nature Nanotechnology paper.

In the latest research, the team used the same STM technique to observe atomic-scale details of the interactions between the coupled atom qubits.

Using our quantum state imaging technique, we could observe for the first time both the anisotropy in the wavefunction and the interference effect directly in the plane this was the starting point to understand how this problem plays out, says Dr Voisin.

We understood that we had to first work out the impact of each of these two ingredients separately, before looking at the full picture to solve the problem this is how we could find this sweet spot, which is readily compatible with the atomic placement precision offered by our STM lithography technique.

Building a silicon quantum computer atom by atom

UNSW scientists at CQC2T are leading the world in the race to build atom-based quantum computers in silicon. The researchers at CQC2T, and its related commercialisation company SQC, are the only team in the world that have the ability to see the exact position of their qubits in the solid state.

In 2019, the Simmons group reached a major milestone in their precision placement approach with the team first building the fastest two-qubit gate in silicon by placing two atom qubits close together, and then controllably observing and measuring their spin states in real-time. The research was published in Nature.

Now, with the Rogge teams latest advances, the researchers from CQC2T and SQC are positioned to use these interactions in larger scale systems for scalable processors.

Being able to observe and precisely place atoms in our silicon chips continues to provide a competitive advantage for fabricating quantum computers in silicon, says Prof. Simmons.

The combined Simmons, Rogge and Rahman teams are working with SQC to build the first useful, commercial quantum computer in silicon. Co-located with CQC2T on the UNSW Sydney campus, SQCs goal is to build the highest quality, most stable quantum processor.

References:

Valley interference and spin exchange at the atomic scale in silicon by B. Voisin, J. Bocquel, A. Tankasala, M. Usman, J. Salfi, R. Rahman, M. Y. Simmons, L. C. L. Hollenberg and S. Rogge, 30 November 2020, Nature Communications.DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19835-1

Spatially resolving valley quantum interference of a donor in silicon by J. Salfi, J. A. Mol, R. Rahman, G. Klimeck, M. Y. Simmons, L. C. L. Hollenberg and S. Rogge, 6 April 2014, Nature Materials.DOI: 10.1038/nmat3941

Spatial metrology of dopants in silicon with exact lattice site precision by M. Usman, J. Bocquel, J. Salfi, B. Voisin, A. Tankasala, R. Rahman, M. Y. Simmons, S. Rogge and L. C. L. Hollenberg, 6 June 2016, Nature Nanotechnology.DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2016.83

A two-qubit gate between phosphorus donor electrons in silicon by Y. He, S. K. Gorman, D. Keith, L. Kranz, J. G. Keizer and M. Y. Simmons, 17 July 2019, Nature.DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1381-2

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Hitting the Quantum Sweet Spot: Best Position for Atom Qubits in Silicon to Scale Up Atom-Based Quantum Processors - SciTechDaily

A new tool that uses light to map out the electronic structures of crystals could reveal the capabilities of emerging quantum materials and pave the way for advanced energy technologies and quantum computers, according to researchers at the University of Michigan, University of Regensburg and University of Marburg.

A paper on the work is published in Science.

Applications include LED lights, solar cells and artificial photosynthesis.

Quantum materials could have an impact way beyond quantum computing, said Mackillo Kira, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of Michigan, who led the theory side of the new study. If you optimize quantum properties right, you can get 100% efficiency for light absorption.

Mackillo Kira

Silicon-based solar cells are already becoming the cheapest form of electricity, although their sunlight-to-electricity conversion efficiency is rather low, about 30%. Emerging 2D semiconductors, which consist of a single layer of crystal, could do that much betterpotentially using up to 100% of the sunlight. They could also elevate quantum computing to room temperature from the near-absolute-zero machines demonstrated so far.

New quantum materials are now being discovered at a faster pace than ever, said Rupert Huber, professor of physics at the University of Regensburg in Germany, who led the experimental work. By simply stacking such layers one on top of the other under variable twist angles, and with a wide selection of materials, scientists can now create artificial solids with truly unprecedented properties.

Rupert Huber

The ability to map these properties down to the atoms could help streamline the process of designing materials with the right quantum structures. But these ultrathin materials are much smaller and messier than earlier crystals, and the old analysis methods dont work. Now, 2D materials can be measured with the new laser-based method at room temperature and pressure.

The measurable operations include processes that are key to solar cells, lasers and optically driven quantum computing. Essentially, electrons pop between a ground state, in which they cannot travel, and states in the semiconductors conduction band, in which they are free to move through space. They do this by absorbing and emitting light.

The electrons absorb laser light and set up momentum combs (the hills) spanning the energy valleys within the material (the red line). When the electrons have an energy allowed by the quantum mechanical structure of the materialand also touch the edge of the valleythey emit light. This is why some teeth of the combs are bright and some are dark. By measuring the emitted light and precisely locating its source, the research mapped out the energy valleys in a 2D crystal of tungsten diselenide. Image credit: Markus Borsch, Quantum Science Theory Lab, University of Michigan.

The quantum mapping method uses a 100 femtosecond (100 quadrillionths of a second) pulse of red laser light to pop electrons out of the ground state and into the conduction band. Next the electrons are hit with a second pulse of infrared light. This pushes them so that they oscillate up and down an energy valley in the conduction band, a little like skateboarders in a halfpipe.

The team uses the dual wave/particle nature of electrons to create a standing wave pattern that looks like a comb. They discovered that when the peak of this electron comb overlaps with the materials band structureits quantum structureelectrons emit light intensely. That powerful light emission along, with the narrow width of the comb lines, helped create a picture so sharp that researchers call it super-resolution.

By combining that precise location information with the frequency of the light, the team was able to map out the band structure of the 2D semiconductor tungsten diselenide. Not only that, but they could also get a read on each electrons orbital angular momentum through the way the front of the light wave twisted in space. Manipulating an electrons orbital angular momentum, known also as a pseudospin, is a promising avenue for storing and processing quantum information.

In tungsten diselenide, the orbital angular momentum identifies which of two different valleys an electron occupies. The messages that the electrons send out can show researchers not only which valley the electron was in but also what the landscape of that valley looks like and how far apart the valleys are, which are the key elements needed to design new semiconductor-based quantum devices.

For instance, when the team used the laser to push electrons up the side of one valley until they fell into the other, the electrons emitted light at that drop point, too. That light gives clues about the depths of the valleys and the height of the ridge between them. With this kind of information, researchers can figure out how the material would fare for a variety of purposes.

The paper is titled, Super-resolution lightwave tomography of electronic bands in quantum materials. This research was funded by the Army Research Office, German Research Foundation and U-M College of Engineering Blue Sky Research Program.

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Mapping quantum structures with light to unlock their capabilities - University of Michigan News