The UNSW’s first new method for building qubits borrows a bit of technology from contemporary machines. Using a design similar to the silicon transistors in today’s computers, Professor Andrew Dzurak built a reliable artificial atom qubit.
Though more exotic than its silicon counterpart, the second new qubit design uses a “natural” phosphorus atom at its core. Though in actuality this atom contains two qubits.
“The phosphorus atom contains in fact two qubits: the electron and the nucleus. With the nucleus in particular, we have achieved accuracy close to 99.99%,” said Dr. Juha Muhonen, lead researcher on the phosphorus qubit project.
Though the two materials for building these ultra-exact qubits are different, they both use a specially purified silicon-28 isotope envelope. Once inside their inert and non-magnetic silicon fold both qubits can be put to work delivering outstanding results.
With two methods for building an accurate quantum computer in hand, researchers will now turn their efforts towards scaling the systems. Given the international need, and competition for, large supercomputing systems the race is on to scale this pair of novel qubits in short order.
Who knows, maybe sometime in the next 5-10 years a fully functional quantum computer will predict weather patterns, simulate nuclear reactions and identify prime numbers well into the millinillions.
Image and Video Courtesy of University of New South Wales