One of the problems with quantum bits, or “qubits”, is that they tend to be rather fragile, with a high sensitivity to external influences. Much of this is due to the atoms used for qubits having two distinct spin states of up or down, along with the superposition. Any disturbing of the qubit’s state can cause it to flip between either spin, erasing the original state. Now antimony is suggested as a better qubit atom by researchers at the University of New South Wales in Australia due to it having effectively eight spin states, as also detailed in the university press release along with a very tortured ‘cats have nine lives’ analogy.
For the experiment, also published in Nature Physics, the researchers doped a silicon semiconductor with a single antimony atom, proving that such an antimony qubit device can be manufactured, with the process scalable to arrays of such qubits. For the constructed device, the spin state is controlled via a transistor constructed on top of the trapped atom. As a next step a device with closely spaced antimony atoms will be produced, which should enable these to cooperate as qubits and perform calculations.
By having the qubit go through many more states to fully flip, these qubits can potentially be much more stable than contemporary qubits. That said, there’s still a lot more research and development to be done before a quantum processor based this technology can go toe-to-toe with a Commodore 64 to show off the Quantum Processor Advantage. Very likely we’ll be seeing more of IBM’s hybrid classical-quantum systems before that.
So… looking at the image of the team, it’s safe to say that they are working on a plan to take over the world after throwing it into chaos. Someone call 007. ;)
Always remember: “Cats have servants, dogs have owners”.
It may look like the scientists are in control, but the reality is that they are just puppets following the orders given to them by the cats.
You do not need 007, what you really need is a large pack of dogs, something along the lines of Santa’s Little Helper, Scooby Doo, Scrappy Doo, Snoopy, Lassie, Lady and Tramp …. and Cerberus! If the cats are running away they do not have time to be evil!
Finally, a nice honest Photoshop job. Also, I wish them luck. All that work for a single atom. What I didn’t get about the cat analogy was why the atom could make it through all 8 of the spin states before it would become a 1 instead of flipping after the the fourth. Does the state of the quibit only degrade in one direction?
Good thing they are not in California where the divorce laws make antimony much more costly!
Goodby RSA.
what is the instruction set for a quantum computer?
AI Overview.
A quantum computer’s instruction set, also called a “quantum instruction set” or “basis gate set,” is a collection of basic quantum operations (gates) that can be combined to perform complex quantum computations on qubits, essentially acting as the fundamental building blocks for any quantum algorithm, and specific to the type of quantum hardware being used; common examples include single-qubit rotations, controlled-NOT (CNOT) gates, and other entangling gates, allowing for the manipulation of quantum states within the system.