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Chinese scientists say physics breakthrough is a step towards scalable quantum computation
- China’s ‘father of quantum’ Pan Jianwei and his team have been studying optical-lattice-based ultracold atomic systems since 2010
- Quantum entanglement is a key ingredient in quantum algorithms and can help develop much faster and more powerful computers
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Ling Xinin Ohio
Scientists in China say they have made a breakthrough on the way to developing practical processors for quantum computers by achieving the entanglement of multiple ultracold atoms in a laser trap.
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While previous studies had only been able to entangle two atoms at a time, the team developed new experimental devices and methods to link eight and 10 atoms in two-dimensional blocks and one-dimensional chains, respectively, marking a crucial step towards preparing and manipulating large-scale atom entanglement.
The study offered “a new platform towards scalable quantum computation and simulation,” wrote Pan Jianwei and his colleagues from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC), Tsinghua University and Fudan University in their paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Physical Review Letters last month.
Quantum entanglement is a bizarre phenomenon in the world of quantum mechanics in which two or more particles are linked and always share a unified quantum state no matter how far apart they are in space.
It is a key ingredient in quantum algorithms and can help develop much faster and more powerful computers.
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For instance, a quantum computer with 10 quantum bits, or qubits, represents the same amount of memory as 2^10 bits of a conventional computer, and its computing power increases exponentially with the number of particles entangled.
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