#Jason petta how to#

'Petta and coworkers demonstrate a new method that utilizes the nuclear spins for performing fast quantum operations. 'In the quest to build a quantum computer with electron spin qubits,В nuclear spins are typically aВ nuisance,' said Guido Burkard, a theoretical physicist at the University of Konstanz in Germany. PettaвЂ™s work is using electron spin to advantage. In the past decade, theorists and mathematicians have designed algorithms that exploit this mysterious superposition to perform intricate calculations at speeds unmatched by supercomputers today. New designs could take advantage of a rich set of possibilities offered by harnessing this property to enhance computing power. The Austrian theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1945, proposed that an electron in a quantum state can assume one of two states - 'spin-up' or 'spin-down.' It can be imagined as behaving like a tiny bar magnet with spin-up corresponding to the north pole pointing up and spin-down corresponding to the north pole pointing down.ДЄn electron in a quantum state can simultaneously be partially in the spin-up state and partially in the spin-down state or anywhere in between, a quantum mechanical property called 'superposition of states.' A qubit based on the spin of an electron could have nearly limitless potential because it can be neither strictly on nor strictly off. In the quantum world, objects can turn in ways that are at odds with common experience. In addition to electrical charge, electrons possess rotational properties. Quantum computers will be designed to take advantage of these characteristics to enrich their capacities in many ways.

#Jason petta how to#

Scientists like Petta are working in a field known as quantum control where they are learning how to manipulate materials under the influence of quantum mechanics so they can exploit those properties to power advanced technologies like quantum computing.

Living for fractions of a second in the realm of quantum physics before they are rattled by external forces, the electrons obey a unique set of physical laws that govern the behavior of ultra-small objects. When the electrons in PettaвЂ™s experiment are in what he calls their quantum state, they are 'coherent,' following rules that are radically different from the world seen by the naked eye. In his laboratory, Petta has trapped one or two electrons in microscopic corrals created by applying voltages to miniscule electrodes on a wafer of semiconductor. But the outside world is sort of poking at it, and that process of the outside world poking at it causes it to lose its quantum mechanical nature.' 'All we want is for the electron to just sit there and do what we tell it to do. 'If you can take a small enough object like a single electron and isolate it well enough from external perturbations, then it will behave quantum mechanically for a long period of time,' said Petta. PettaвЂ™s method not only achieves control of single electrons, but it does so extremely rapidly - in one-billionth of a second. However, because it affected all the electrons uniformly, the technique could not be used to manipulate single electrons in spin qubits. Previous experiments used a technique in which electrons in a sample were exposed to microwave radiation. Other authors on the paper include Art Gossard and Hong Lu at the University of California-Santa Barbara. 5 edition of Science, he describes how electrons trapped in these corrals form 'spin qubits,' quantum versions of classic computer information units known as bits.

Petta, an assistant professor of physics, has fashioned a new method of trapping one or two electrons in microscopic corrals created by applying voltages to minuscule electrodes. The feat is essential to the development of future varieties of superfast computers with near-limitless capacities for data. Princeton UniversityвЂ™s Jason Petta has discovered how to do just that - demonstrating a method that alters the properties of a lone electron without disturbing the trillions of electrons in its immediate surroundings. * Read about another Princeton University-led team making advances in spintronics *ДЄ major hurdle in the ambitious quest to design and construct a radically new kind of quantum computer has been finding a way to manipulate the single electrons that very likely will constitute the new machinesвЂ™ processing components or 'qubits.' (Photos: Brian Wilson) (Images for news media) Such a feat is an important step toward developing future types of quantum computers. Jason Petta, an assistant professor of physics, has found a way to alter the property of a lone electron without disturbing the trillions of electrons in its immediate surroundings.