New super-pure silicon chip opens path to powerful quantum computers
Researchers at the Universities of Melbourne and Manchester have invented a breakthrough technique for manufacturing highly purified silicon that brings powerful quantum computers a big step closer.
The new technique to engineer ultra-pure silicon makes it the perfect material to make quantum computers at scale and with high accuracy, the researchers say.
Project co-supervisor Professor David Jamieson, from the University of Melbourne, said the innovation – published today in Communications Materials, a Nature journal – uses qubits of phosphorous atoms implanted into crystals of pure stable silicon and could overcome a critical barrier to quantum computing by extending the duration of notoriously fragile quantum coherence.
“Fragile quantum coherence means computing errors build up rapidly. With robust coherence provided by our new technique, quantum computers could solve in hours or minutes some problems that would take conventional or ‘classical’ computers – even supercomputers – centuries,” Professor Jamieson said.
Quantum bits or qubits* – the building blocks of quantum computers – are susceptible to tiny changes in their environment, including temperature fluctuations. Even when operated in tranquil refrigerators near absolute zero (minus 273 degrees Celsius), current quantum computers can maintain error-free coherence for only a tiny fraction of a second.
