[extropy-chat] Quantum Computing

[John K Clark]

There is an interesting paper in the July 22 issue of Nature, a UCLA team
succeeded in flipping a single electron spin upside down in an ordinary
commercial transistor chip, and detected that the current changes when the
electron flips.

Hong Wen Jiang, a UCLA professor of physics and member of the California
NanoSystems Institute, in whose laboratory the experiments were conducted
said:

"Our research demonstrates that an ordinary transistor, the kind used in a
desktop PC or cell phone, can be adapted for practical quantum computing,
The research makes quantum computing closer and more practical. I would not
be surprised one day to see a quantum computer built, based almost entirely
on silicon technology. 

Eli Yablonovitch, co-author of the Nature paper said: 

"We've done this with a commercial silicon integrated circuit chip,
literally off a shelf. We've manipulated one spin, a year from now,
manipulating a single spin might be all in a day's work, and in 10 years,
perhaps it will have a commercial role. With 100 transistors, each
containing one of these electrons, you could have the implicit information
storage that corresponds to all of the hard disks made in the world this
year, multiplied by the number of years the universe has been around. And
why stop with 100 transistors?" 

John K Clark