A UNSW-led research team has encoded quantum information in silicon¹ using simple electrical pulses for the first time, bringing the construction of affordable² large-scale quantum computers one step closer to reality. Lead researcher, UNSW Associate Professor Andrea Morello from the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, said his team had successfully realised a new control method for future quantum computers.

 

The findings were published today in the open-access journal Science Advances.

 

Unlike conventional computers that store data on transistors³ and hard drives, quantum computers encode data in the quantum states of microscopic⁴ objects called qubits.

 

The UNSW team, which is affiliated⁵ with the ARC Centre of Excellence⁶ for Quantum Computation & Communication Technology, was first in the world to demonstrate single-atom spin qubits in silicon, reported in Nature in 2012 and 2013.

 

The team has already improved the control of these qubits to an accuracy of above 99% and established the world record for how long quantum information can be stored in the solid state, as published in Nature Nanotechnology in 2014.

 

It has now demonstrated a key step that had remained elusive⁷ since 1998.

 

"We demonstrated that a highly coherent qubit, like the spin of a single phosphorus atom in isotopically⁸ enriched silicon, can be controlled using electric fields, instead of using pulses of oscillating magnetic fields," explained UNSW's Dr Arne Laucht, post-doctoral researcher and lead author of the study.

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