Quantum computer breakthrough in silicon

24 June 2010
The remarkable ability of an electron to exist in two places at once has been controlled in the most common electronic material - silicon - for the first time. The research findings - published in Nature by a UK-Dutch team from the University of Surrey, University College London, Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, and the FOM Institute for Plasma Physics Rijnhuizen near Utrecht - marks a significant step towards the making of an affordable 'quantum computer'.

Read the press release at the FOM website.

The electron motion in silicon. The electron orbits a phosphorus atom embedded in the silicon lattice, shown in silver. The undisturbed electron density distribution, calculated from the quantum mechanical equations of motion  is shown in yellow. A laser pulse can modify the electron’s state so that it has the density distribution shown in green. Our first laser pulse, arriving from the left, puts the electron into a superposition of both states, which we control with a second pulse, also from the left, to give a pulse which we detect, emerging to the right. The characteristics of this ‘echo’ pulse tell us about the superposition we have made. Credit: Nature