Quantum Computers

[John Clark]

In yesterday's issue of the journal Nature tthere is an article about a new device that could fit inside a bacterium and can measure changes in temperature that are extraordinarily tiny and do so with enormous speed. 

Bolometer operating at the threshold for circuit quantum electrodynamics

This could be very important to anyone who wants to make a quantum computer because you could use it to measure the energy of a Qubit, and that is the most fundamental thing quantum computers do. Normally this is done by measuring the voltage induced by the Qubit, but this requires a lot of large amplification circuitry which makes scaling up to more Qubits very difficult, and the circuitry produces significant amounts of quantum noise. But this new device requires no additional circuitry, is virtually noise free, is much smaller, and it needs six orders of magnitude less energy to run. The device is primarily made from a tiny fleck of Graphene, a 2D sheet of Carbon atoms. 

John K Clark

[Lawrence Crowell]

I have not read the article yet, but this seems to operate at the boundary between where thermal and quantum fluctuations lie. 

LC