Elegant entanglement
Harvard scientists have taken a critical step toward building a quantum computer — a device that could someday harness, for example, the intrinsic properties of subatomic particles such as electrons to perform calculations far faster than the most powerful supercomputers. As described in a paper published April 13 in Science, researchers have, for the first time, demonstrated a system in which two semiconducting spin quantum bits, or qubits, interact with each other in a process known as entanglement. Without that entanglement, quantum computers simply can’t exist. “Entanglement is an essential component of quantum computing — it’s what gives you the ability to do generalized, universal quantum computation,” said Amir Yacoby, professor of physics and of applied physics, who led the research. “Without this kind of entanglement, there’s no way to get anywhere in this field.” Quantum computers rely on quantum mechanical properties of particles to store data and perform computations. Unlike the transistors...