Category Physics

An IBM cryostat wired for a 50 qubit system. Credit: IBM

IBM has announced a milestone in its race against Google and other big tech firms to build a powerful quantum computer. Dario Gil, who leads IBM’s quantum computing and artificial intelligence research division, said it’s scientists have successfully built and measured a processor prototype with 50 qubits. Gil says it’s the first time any company has built a quantum computer at this scale.

This new processor expands upon the 20 qubit architecture and will be made available in the next generation IBM Q systems. Clients will have online access to the computing power of the first IBM Q systems by the end of 2017, with a series of planned upgrades during 2018...

(Photo by Elle Starkman) PPPL physicist Will Fox

Lasers that generate plasma can provide insight into bursts of subatomic particles that occur in deep space, scientists have found. Such findings could help scientists understand cosmic rays, solar flares and solar eruptions – emissions from the sun that can disrupt cell phone service and knock out power grids on Earth.

Physicists have long observed that particles like electrons and atomic nuclei can accelerate to extremely high speeds in space. Researchers believe that processes associated with plasma, the hot fourth state of matter in which electrons have separated from atomic nuclei, might be responsible...

Light on a CMOS chip. Credit: Image courtesy of University of Twente

Electronics and light don’t go well together on a standard ‘CMOS’ chip. Researcher Satadal Dutta of the University of Twente succeeded in introducing a light connection into the heart of a semiconductor chip. In this way, two circuits can communicate. Or: the worlds of electronics and photonics are connected.

What is particularly attractive about Dutta’s solution is that no special materials or manufacturing processes are needed: the light comes from silicon. The light source, detector and the light channel can be made using the technology that is used to make the electronic circuits...

A new pencil-like wireless spectrometer can be used with a smartphone to collect 3-D spectral images of the body and other objects. This design could make the device useful for point-of-care diagnostics. Credit: Dan Wang, Beijing University of Chemical Technology

Easy-to-use spectrometer less than $300, holds promise for remote medical diagnostics. A new smartphone-compatible device that is held like a pencil could make it practical to acquire spectral images of everyday objects and may eventually be used for point-of-care medical diagnosis in remote locations. Spectral images, which contain more color information than is obtainable with a typical camera, reveal characteristics of tissue and other biological samples that can’t be seen by the naked eye...