This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: Quantum information systems could one day shape everyday life through faster computing, sharper sensing and more secure communication. A new result from the U.S.
Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U. of I.) marks an important step toward enabling magnetic spins—a quantum property of matter that can be used to store and manipulate information—to play a role in the future of quantum information processing. The researchers show that ripples in the magnetic state of a material, called spin waves, can interact with superconducting circuits, tiny electrical circuits that can carry microwave signals. The result is a hybrid system in which these two different ways of carrying information can interact and work together.
One can think of it like a hybrid car: A gasoline engine and an electric motor operate in fundamentally different ways, but a hybrid vehicle connects them so they can work together. Similarly, the new quantum system brings together magnetic spin waves and superconducting circuits, potentially allowing researchers to combine the strengths of both. "This is the first time we've shown the proof of concept, demonstrating that we can couple spin waves to a superconducting resonator," said Yi Li, an Argonne scientist and first author of the paper, published in Physical Review Letters.
Superconducting circuits, standard parts of many quantum information systems, help connect and control signals inside those systems. One way to picture them is as tiny on-chip antennas: They send and receive microwave signals in a way that strengthens communication with other parts of the device. That role makes them especially important in quantum computing, where information carried in quantum states can be fragile.
Spin waves offer a different advantage. Under certain conditions, spin waves are unidirectional, meaning they naturally prefer one direction of travel over the opposite direction. That is useful because quantum systems often need one-way signal control to help prevent unwanted noise from leaking back into the quantum components.
"One-way propagation is important because it can help guide information in a single direction and reduce unwanted return signals," Li said. "That kind of control is valuable for quantum information science, and now we can integrate this function onto a superconducting circuit." At the heart of the experiment is a device built on a thin magnetic film, which provides a path for spin waves to travel. The film is made of epitaxial yttrium iron garnet, or YIG, nature's most efficient material for sustaining magnetic motion: It loses very little energy as those motions travel through it.
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