Lifeboat Foundation

There are loopholes.

Try out my quantum mechanics course (and many others on math and science) on Brilliant using the link https://brilliant.org/sabine. You can get started for free, and the first 200 will get 20% off the annual premium subscription.

Continue reading “I Think Faster Than Light Travel is Possible. Here’s Why” »

Accelerating Leadership In Quantum Information Sciences — Dr. Charles Tahan, Ph.D., Assistant Director for Quantum Information Science (QIS); Director, National Quantum Coordination Office, Office of Science and Technology Policy, The White House.

Dr. Charles Tahan, Ph.D. is the Assistant Director for Quantum Information Science (QIS) and the Director of the National Quantum Coordination Office (NQCO) within the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (https://www.quantum.gov/nqco/). The NQCO ensures coordination of the National Quantum Initiative (NQI) and QIS activities across the federal government, industry, and academia.

Continue reading “Dr. Charles Tahan, Ph.D. — Director, National Quantum Coordination Office — OSTP, The White House” »

Goodbye phone lines. Hello quantum physics.

A new approach shrinks quantum photonic technology to the size of a Euro coin.

face_with_colon_three year 2017.

First observed in liquid helium below the lambda point, superfluidity manifests itself in a number of fascinating ways. In the superfluid phase, helium can creep up along the walls of a container, boil without bubbles, or even flow without friction around obstacles. As early as 1938, Fritz London suggested a link between superfluidity and Bose–Einstein condensation (BEC)³. Indeed, superfluidity is now known to be related to the finite amount of energy needed to create collective excitations in the quantum liquid^4,5,6,7, and the link proposed by London was further evidenced by the observation of superfluidity in ultracold atomic BECs^1,8. A quantitative description is given by the Gross–Pitaevskii (GP) equation^9,10 (see Methods) and the perturbation theory for elementary excitations developed by Bogoliubov¹¹. First derived for atomic condensates, this theory has since been successfully applied to a variety of systems, and the mathematical framework of the GP equation naturally leads to important analogies between BEC and nonlinear optics^12,13,14. Recently, it has been extended to include condensates out of thermal equilibrium, like those composed of interacting photons or bosonic quasiparticles such as microcavity exciton-polaritons and magnons^14,15. In particular, for exciton-polaritons, the observation of many-body effects related to condensation and superfluidity such as the excitation of quantized vortices, the formation of metastable currents and the suppression of scattering from potential barriers^{2,16,17,18,19,20} have shown the rich phenomenology that exists within non-equilibrium condensates. Polaritons are confined to two dimensions and the reduced dimensionality introduces an additional element of interest for the topological ordering mechanism leading to condensation, as recently evidenced in ref. 21. However, until now, such phenomena have mainly been observed in microcavities embedding quantum wells of III–V or II–VI semiconductors. As a result, experiments must be performed at low temperatures (below ∼ 20 K), beyond which excitons autoionize. This is a consequence of the low binding energy typical of Wannier–Mott excitons. Frenkel excitons, which are characteristic of organic semiconductors, possess large binding energies that readily allow for strong light–matter coupling and the formation of polaritons at room temperature. Remarkably, in spite of weaker interactions as compared to inorganic polaritons²², condensation and the spontaneous formation of vortices have also been observed in organic microcavities^23,24,25. However, the small polariton–polariton interaction constants, structural inhomogeneity and short lifetimes in these structures have until now prevented the observation of behaviour directly related to the quantum fluid dynamics (such as superfluidity). In this work, we show that superfluidity can indeed be achieved at room temperature and this is, in part, a result of the much larger polariton densities attainable in organic microcavities, which compensate for their weaker nonlinearities.

Our sample consists of an optical microcavity composed of two dielectric mirrors surrounding a thin film of 2,7-Bis[9,9-di(4-methylphenyl)-fluoren-2-yl]-9,9-di(4-methylphenyl)fluorene (TDAF) organic molecules. Light–matter interaction in this system is so strong that it leads to the formation of hybrid light–matter modes (polaritons), with a Rabi energy 2 Ω_R ∼ 0.6 eV. A similar structure has been used previously to demonstrate polariton condensation under high-energy non-resonant excitation²⁴. Upon resonant excitation, it allows for the injection and flow of polaritons with a well-defined density, polarization and group velocity.

Continue reading “Room-temperature superfluidity in a polariton condensate Physics” »

Lithium-ion batteries power our lives.

Because they are lightweight, have high energy density and are rechargeable, the batteries power many products, from laptops and cell phones to electric cars and toothbrushes.

However, current lithium-ion batteries have reached the limit of how much energy they can store. That has researchers looking for more powerful and cheaper alternatives.

To build a workforce that can meet the expected future demand in the quantum sector, we need to train many more quantum-literate educators and marshal support for them.

In 2018 the US federal government passed the National Quantum Initiative Act, a program designed to accelerate the country’s quantum research and development activities. In the next decade, quantum information science and quantum technologies are expected to have a significant impact on the US economy, as well as on that of other countries. To fulfill that promise, the US will need a “quantum-capable” workforce that is conversant with the core aspects of quantum technologies and is large enough to meet the expected demand. But even now, as quantum-career opportunities are just starting to appear, supply falls behind demand; according to a 2022 report, there is currently only around one qualified candidate for every three quantum job openings [1]. We call for education institutions and funding agencies to invest significantly in workforce development efforts to prevent the worsening of this dearth.

Most of today’s jobs in quantum information science and technology (QIST) require detailed knowledge and skills that students typically gain in graduate-level programs [2]. As the quantum industry matures from having a research and development focus toward having a deployment focus, this requirement will likely relax. The change is expected to increase the proportion of QIST jobs compatible with undergraduate-level training. However, 86% of QIST-focused courses currently take place at PhD-granting research institutions [3]. Very few other undergraduate institutions offer opportunities to learn about the subject. To meet the future need, we believe that aspect needs to change with QIST education being incorporated into the curricula at predominantly undergraduate institutions and community colleges in the US. However, adding QIST classes to the curricula at these institutions will be no easy task.

An international team of researchers from Leibniz University Hannover (Germany), the University of Twente (Netherlands), and the start-up company QuiX Quantum has presented an entangled quantum light source fully integrated for the first time on a chip. The results of the study were published in the journal Nature Photonics.

“Our breakthrough allowed us to shrink the source size by a factor of more than 1,000, allowing reproducibility, stability over a longer time, scaling, and potentially mass-production. All these characteristics are required for real-world applications such as quantum processors,” says Prof. Dr. Michael Kues, head of the Institute of Photonics, and board member of the Cluster of Excellence PhoenixD at Leibniz University Hannover.

Quantum bits (qubits) are the basic building blocks of quantum computers and the quantum internet. Quantum light sources generate light quanta (photons) that can be used as quantum bits. On-chip photonics has become a leading platform for processing optical quantum states as it is compact, robust, and allows to accommodate and arrange many elements on a single chip. Here, light is directed on the chip through extremely compact structures, which are used to build photonic quantum computing systems. These are already accessible today through the cloud. Scalably implemented, they could solve tasks that are inaccessible to conventional computers due to their limited computing capacities. This superiority is referred to as quantum advantage.

The nanoscale electronic parts in devices like smartphones are solid, static objects that once designed and built cannot transform into anything else. But University of California, Irvine physicists have reported the discovery of nanoscale devices that can transform into many different shapes and sizes even though they exist in solid states.

It’s a finding that could fundamentally change the nature of electronic devices, as well as the way scientists research atomic-scale quantum materials. The study is published in Science Advances.

“What we discovered is that for a particular set of materials, you can make nanoscale electronic devices that aren’t stuck together,” said Javier Sanchez-Yamagishi, an assistant professor of physics & astronomy whose lab performed the new research. “The parts can move, and so that allows us to modify the size and shape of a device after it’s been made.”