Researchers at ETH have managed to trap ions using static electric and magnetic fields and to perform quantum operations on them. In the future, such traps could be used to realize quantum computers with far more quantum bits than have...
The field of photonic integrated circuits focuses on the miniaturization of photonic elements and their integration in photonic chips—circuits that carry out a range of calculations using photons, rather than electrons as are used in...
When we last checked in with Caltech's Kerry Vahala three years ago, his lab had recently reported the development of a new optical device called a turnkey frequency microcomb that has applications in digital communications, precision...
The hereditary molecule DNA can store a great deal of information over long periods of time in a very small space. For a good 10 years, scientists have therefore been pursuing the goal of developing DNA chips for computer technology, for...
Scientists led by Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) investigators have made a significant advance in developing alternative materials for the high-speed memory chips that let computers access information quickly...
The laser is so small you need a microscope to see it properly. But it's not just the size that scientists at Sandia National Laboratories are excited about.
A laser pulse surfing in the wake of an electron beam pulse could get upshifted from visible to extreme ultraviolet light, simulations done at the University of Michigan have shown.
It's been a turbulent year for cryptocurrency. Crypto giant FTX is just the latest in a slew of bankruptcies, collapsing spectacularly after a run on the company and a mad scramble to recover customer assets. Once worth $32 billion, it...
Computer chips are packed with billions of microscopic transistors that enable powerful computation, but also generate a great deal of heat. A buildup of heat can slow a computer processor and make it less efficient and reliable....
On-chip laser frequency combs—lasers that emit multiple frequencies or colors of light simultaneously separated like the tooth on a comb—are a promising technology for a range of applications including environmental monitoring, optical...
The silicon-based computer chips that power our modern devices require vast amounts of energy to operate. Despite ever-improving computing efficiency, information technology is projected to consume around 25% of all primary energy...
Stanford University researchers have developed a key experimental device for future quantum physics-based technologies that borrows a page from current, everyday mechanical devices.
The female genital tract can be a hostile environment for conception. Out of about 100 million sperm, only a few hundred make it to the fallopian tubes. Guided by a directional movement called rheotaxis, sperm cells swim against the...
The microscopic components that make up computer chips must be made at staggering scales. With billions of transistors in a single processor, each made of multiple materials carefully arranged in patterns as thin as a strand of DNA,...
The disruption in the global supply chain that caused shortages in everything from coffee to automotive parts to computer chips beginning in mid-2019 will be around for at least a few more months, according to most experts.
In a new publication from Opto-Electronic Advances the research group of Professor Xiaoyong Hu and Professor Qihuang Gong from School of Physics, Peking University, China, propose a new strategy to realize ultrafast and...
A thermos bottle has the task of preserving the temperature—but sometimes you want to achieve the opposite: Computer chips generate heat that must be dissipated as quickly as possible so that the chip is not destroyed. This requires...
A team of researchers and engineers at Canadian company Xanadu Quantum Technologies Inc., working with the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the U.S., has developed a programmable, scalable photonic quantum chip that can...
In a potential boost for quantum computing and communication, a European research collaboration reported a new method of controlling and manipulating single photons without generating heat. The solution makes it possible to integrate...
The tiniest microchips yet can be made from graphene and other 2-D-materials, using a form of "nano-origami," physicists at the University of Sussex have found.
A team of researchers from the Faculty of Pure and Applied Sciences at the University of Tsukuba filmed the ultrafast motion of electrons with sub-nanoscale spatial resolution. This work provides a powerful tool for studying the...
The digital age has seen electronics, including computer chips, shrink in size at an amazing rate, with ever tinier chips powering devices like smartphones, laptops and even autonomous drones. In the wake of this progress, another...
Superconducting devices such as SQUIDS (Superconducting Quantum Interferometry Device) can perform ultra-sensitive measurements of magnetic fields. Leiden physicsts invented a method to 3-D-print these and other superconducting devices...
Researchers at ETH have demonstrated a new technique for carrying out sensitive quantum operations on atoms. In this technique, the control laser light is delivered directly inside a chip. This should make it possible to build...
As computer chips and other electronic devices continue to shrink in size, they become ever more sensitive to contamination. However, detecting the nanoscale equivalent of a water spot on a window is incredibly challenging. It is...
According to current estimates, the amount of data produced by humans and machines is rising at an exponential rate, with the digital universe doubling in size every two years. Very likely, the magnetic and optical data-storage systems...
Researchers from EPFL's Photonics Systems Lab have come up with a way of reconfiguring microwave photonic filters without the need for an external device. This paves the way for more compact, environmentally friendly filters that will be...
Last year, Google produced a 53-qubit quantum computer that could perform a specific calculation significantly faster than the world's fastest supercomputer. Like most of today's largest quantum computers, this system boasts tens of...
"Beam me up" is one of the most famous catchphrases from the Star Trek series. It is the command issued when a character wishes to teleport from a remote location back to the Starship Enterprise.
Most quantum computers being developed around the world will only work at fractions of a degree above absolute zero. That requires multi-million-dollar refrigeration and as soon as you plug them into conventional electronic circuits...