Reduced entropy in a three-dimensional lattice of super-cooled, laser-trapped atoms could help speed progress toward creating quantum computers. A team of researchers at Penn State can rearrange a randomly distributed array of atoms into neatly organized blocks, thus performing the function of a "Maxwell's demon" -- a thought experiment from the 1870s that challenged the second law of thermodynamics. The organized blocks of atoms could form the basis for a quantum computer that uses uncharged atoms to encode data and perform calculations. A paper describing the research appears September 6, 2018 in the journal Nature.
"Traditional computers use transistors to encode data as bits that can be in one of two states -- zero or one," said David Weiss, professor of physics at Penn State and the leader of the research team. "We are devising quantum computers that use atoms as 'quantum bits' or 'qubits' that can encode data based on quantum mechanical phenomena that allow them to be in multiple states simultaneously. Organizing the atoms into a packed 3D grid allows us to fit a lot of atoms into a small area and makes computation easier and more efficient."
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