Researchers Create Silicon-Based Quantum Bit

angry tapir writes "Researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia have created the world's first working quantum bit based on a single atom in silicon. The research team was able to both read and write information using the spin, or magnetic orientation, of an electron bound to a single phosphorous atom embedded in a silicon chip. In February, UNSW researchers revealed they had successfully created a single-atom transistor using a single phosphorous atom in a silicon crystal."

Comments

Useful links

[hweimer]

Actual research article

Wikipedia article on the architecture proposal

Bit not a Qubit

[Big Hairy Ian]

All this demonstrates is the ability to store 1 bit of information at the atomic level not a Qubit which can be in multiple states at once due to quantum entanglement. This is like heralding the dawn of the computer age by promoting a mechanical calculator.

Re:Bit not a Qubit

[hweimer]

They show relatively clear Rabi oscillations, which are a definite proof of the quantumness of the evolution of their system (which has nothing to do with entanglement). So, yes, this is a genuine qubit, albeit not a perfect one.

Re:Bit not a Qubit

[Anonymous Coward]

No, they've demonstrated a single Qubit.

TFS makes things mucky by mentioning single electron transistors too, which are a completely different beast.

The problem with quantum computing isn't demonstrating single qubits though. The problem is in getting a reasonable number in a superposition. Most I've ever seen in a QC that actually does computations is 7 qubits.

Just to get an idea of the scale we need, Shor's algorithm, the one which we could use to crack RSA encryption in polynomial time, needs 2*N qubits minimum. So to crack RSA1024 we'd need 2048 qubits all in a state of superposition.

I'm of the opinion adding more qubits to a superposition is going to be an exponentially hard problem.

Re:I have a question:

[jamesh]

can you run linux on it?

Nope. Linux requires at least a two bit computer to run.

Re:payback

[wonkey_monkey]

First Evidence of Quantum Tunnelling Slashdot Post Dismissed as Human Error.