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Until quite recently, creating a hologram of a single photon was believed to be impossible due to fundamental laws of physics. However, scientists at the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, have successfully applied concepts of classical holography to the world of quantum phenomena. A new measurement technique has enabled them to register the first ever hologram of a single light particle, thereby shedding new light on the foundations of quantum mechanics.

Scientists at the Faculty of Physics, University of Warsaw, have created the first ever hologram of a single light particle. The spectacular experiment, reported in the journal Nature Photonics, was conducted by Dr. Radoslaw Chrapkiewicz and Michal Jachura under the supervision of Dr. Wojciech Wasilewski and Prof. Konrad Banaszek. Their successful registering of the hologram of a single photon heralds a new era in holography: quantum holography, which promises to offer a whole new perspective on quantum phenomena.

“We performed a relatively simple experiment to measure and view something incredibly difficult to observe: the shape of wavefronts of a single photon,” says Dr. Chrapkiewicz.

Continue reading “The birth of quantum holography: Making holograms of single light particles!” »

This truly makes QC more practical on many fronts. First, no need for QC to reside in an “icebox” room/ environment. Second, with the recent findings on making quantum computing scalable; we now have a method in place to not make QC devices over heat as well. So, again another major step forward by Sydney and their partners in Switzerland and Germany.

http://www.itwire.com/development/73884-research-breakthroug…uture.html

A group of international researchers, including a leading research from the University of Sydney, has made a breakthrough discovery, making a conducting carbon material that they demonstrated could be used to perform quantum computing at room temperature, rather than near absolute zero (−273°C).

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Few of us really understand the weird world of quantum physics – but our bodies might take advantage of quantum properties.

A team of researchers has overcome a key challenge — how to build a quantum computer that is capable of functioning at room temperature.

The warning from QuintessenceLabs’ CTO John Leisoboer is stark. “When sufficiently powerful quantum computers become generally available,” he says, “it’s guaranteed to break all existing cryptographic systems that we know of.”

In other words, he adds, “Everything that we’re doing today will be broken.”

It’s a sentiment echoed by Google’s Chrome security software engineer Matt Braithwaite who wrote in a blog post earlier this month that “a hypothetical, future quantum computer would be able to retrospectively decrypt any internet communication that was recorded today”.

Continue reading “Can we find a quantum-resistant algorithm before it’s too late?” »

https://youtube.com/watch?v=jg8iCnQTLfM

A team has used simple quantum processors to run “quantum walk” algorithms, showing that even primitive quantum computers can outperform the classical variety in certain scenarios—and suggesting that the age of quantum computing may be closer than we imagined.

By now, most readers of Futurism are probably pretty well acquainted with the concept (and fantastic promise) of quantum computing.

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Physics, as you may have read before, is based around two wildly successful theories. On the grand scale, galaxies, planets, and all the other big stuff dance to the tune of gravity. But, like your teenage daughter, all the little stuff stares in bewildered embarrassment at gravity’s dancing. Quantum mechanics is the only beat the little stuff is willing get down to. Unlike teenage rebellion, though, no one claims to understand what keeps relativity and quantum mechanics from getting along.

Because we refuse to believe that these two theories are separate, physicists are constantly trying to find a way to fit them together. Part-in-parcel with creating a unifying model is finding evidence of a connection between the gravity and quantum mechanics. For example, showing that the gravitational force experienced by a particle depended on the particle’s internal quantum state would be a great sign of a deeper connection between the two theories. The latest attempt to show this uses a new way to look for coupling between gravity and the quantum property called spin.

I’m free, free fallin’

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Small magnetic fields from the human body can usually only be picked up by very sensitive superconducting magnetic field sensors that have to be cooled by liquid helium to near absolute zero (which is minus 273 degrees Celsius). But now researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen have developed a much cheaper and more practical optical magnetic field sensor that even works at room temperature or at body temperature.

“The optical magnetic field sensor is based on a gas of caesium atoms in a small glass container. Each caesium atom is equivalent to a small bar magnet, which is affected by external magnetic fields. The atoms and thus the magnetic field are picked up using laser light. The method is based on quantum optics and atomic physics and can be used to measure extremely small magnetic fields,” explains Kasper Jensen, assistant professor in the Center for Quantum Optics, Quantop at the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen.

Ultra sensitive magnetic field sensor.

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(Phys.org)—A team of researchers with the University of California, MIT, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan has created images of relativistic electrons trapped in graphene quantum dots. In their paper published in the journal Nature Physics the team describes how they achieved this feat and where they plan to take their work in the future.

As the many unique properties of graphene continue to unfold, scientists seek new ways to harness and eventually make use of them. One such use might be to control electrons to allow their use in nano-scaled devices, which could also inadvertently lead to a deeper understanding of Dirac fermions. In this new effort, the researchers have made progress in that area by devising a means for capturing and holding electrons and for creating images of the result.

Obtaining images of electron waveforms has thus far been particularly difficult—virtually all existing methods have resulted in too many defects. To get around such problems, the researchers took another approach to capturing the electrons. They first created circular p-n junctions by sending voltage through the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope down to a graphene sample below. At the same time, they also applied voltage to a slab of silicon underneath the piece of graphene, which was kept separated by a layer of silicon-oxide and a flake of boron nitride. Doing so caused defects in the boron nitride to ionize, resulting in charges migrating to the graphene.

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