semiconductor chip tagged posts

Researchers demonstrate the first single-photon transistor using a semiconductor chip. They used a single photon, stored in a quantum memory, to toggle the state of other photons. Credit: E. Edwards/Joint Quantum Institute

Researchers have demonstrated the first single-photon transistor using a semiconductor chip. Transistors are tiny switches that form the bedrock of modern computing; billions of them route electrical signals around inside a smartphone, for instance. Quantum computers will need analogous hardware to manipulate quantum information. But the design constraints for this new technology are stringent, and today’s most advanced processors can’t be repurposed as quantum devices. That’s because qubits, have to follow different rules laid out by quantum physics.

Scientists can use ...

A fully packaged device for trapping and manipulating single electrons and photons. A series of on-chip electrodes (lower left and upper right) lead to the formation of a double quantum dot that confines a single electron below the surface of the chip. The photon, which is free to move within the full 7-millimeter span of the cavity, exchanges quantum information with the electron inside the double quantum dot. (Photo courtesy of the Jason Petta research group, Department of Physics)

In a step that brings silicon-based quantum computers closer to reality, researchers at Princeton University have built a device in which a single electron can pass its quantum information to a particle of light...