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: Helium—the lightest atom that can be laser-cooled and controlled—powers a new design for high-powered, stable quantum computers. In a paper published in PRX Quantum, a team led by University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering and Physics Department Associate Professor Jacob Covey outlined a new concept that could turn helium's light weight into the next generation of quantum computers.
Once built, the computer could use high-powered lasers as "optical tweezers" to capture and control individual helium atoms, the second-lightest element overall and the lightest that can be trapped with current technology. This offers a major advance over designs based on lithium, the third-lightest element. "Helium is even lighter than lithium, so that provides quantum tunneling rates about three times faster, at least," said co-first author Zheyuan Li, a Ph.D. student in Covey's lab.
"Helium also has a much better-resolved energy structure, which means it could be laser-cooled much more easily than lithium atoms." The design uses helium-3, an isotope with different quantum properties than the helium-4 used to cool MRI machines and fill party balloons. Peers in the scientific community have praised the innovation. "By using the lightest trappable atom, this work turns low mass into a real advantage—faster tunneling, faster transport and controllable motional qubits.
It's a compelling blueprint for the next generation of fermionic quantum simulators," said Princeton University physics professor Waseem Bakr, who was not involved in the research. The team's next step is to build the device in collaboration with UChicago Physics Assistant Professor Zoe Yan, a co-author of the work, to trap and control individual helium-3 atoms for the first time. "The foundation is there, and the progress is advancing now to the point where we would hope to have these atoms in tweezers for the first time probably within the next year or two," Covey said.
Although they're also used to handle and control small items, optical tweezers are very different from the tiny tongs of watchmakers and estheticians. Rather, Covey compares them to science fiction tractor beams, with high-powered lasers capturing and holding individual atoms the way the Death Star might nab a spaceship. "You just have one beam, one focused spot, and the atom is attracted to that spot," Covey said.
To trap the atom, the laser must emit enough energy to take the atom from its ground state to its excited state. The amount of energy needed depends on the type of atom, which is why hydrogen—the lightest element of all—is currently untrappable. It takes too much energy for modern technology.
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