University of New South Wales devised a two-qubit system inside a silicon chip and ran a computer code adapted to the quantum world. Their code passed the notoriously intransigent ‘Bell test’, making it the strongest evidence yet that quantum computers can be instructed to handle operations.
Why should you care about quantum computers
Previously, ZME Science reported how the same Australian researchers devised a working two-qubit logic gate all on silicon chip. Now, the team reports they’ve also crunched some numbers using two quantum particles an electron and the nucleus of a single phosphorus atom. To understand why this is quite the breakthrough, let’s do a short recap. Transistors perform logic operations by shuttling bits of data, each assigned a value which is either “0” or “1”. That’s how a classical, digital computer works. Quantum computers, however, use qubits or a quantum bit which can simultaneously exist in both states at once – both “0” and “1”. This is known as a superposition, and if scientists can leverage it then information could be processed in parallel. Two-qubits can perform operations on four values, three on eight values and so on in powers of two. Today’s computers have millions of transistors. Now imagine a quantum logic gate that works with millions of qubits. The computing force would be unheard of.
The quantum code written by UNSW exploits a quantum phenomena called entanglement or “spooky action at a distance”, as the baffled Einstein used to call it. When two quantum particles are entangled, measurements performed on of the two instantly affects the other, no matter how far apart they are. You can have an electron here on Earth, and its entangled mate at the other end of the universe and the two would still instantly react. In September, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) quantum teleported information from on proton to another one 100 kilometers away. To communicate with Mars, you have to wait a couple of minutes before you can expect a reply since information transfer is limited by the speed of light. It’s conceivable that using quantum teleportation via quantum entanglement that it will be possible to communicate instantly from any point in the universe. It’s quite exciting stuff.
This is spooky
A consequence of entanglement is superposition. Consider two atoms and their property known as “spin” – this is basically whether the magnetic field of the atom points up or down in an external magnetic field. If two atoms are coupled together in a quantum system (close to each other) like in the case of the H2 molecule, the spins of both atoms can be entangled together in certain circumstances. Whether the spins point in opposite directions, up or down, it doesn’t really matter since both atoms are pointing up and down at the same time. The diagram shows that we rotate H-H by 180 degrees we get H-H, which is identical. In quantum mechanics, we say these atoms exist in a superposition of states.
Ace that test
Superposition is a basic pre-requisite to writing code for quantum computers. The Australian researchers made an electron orbit the nucleus of a single phosphorus atom, so the two are on top of each other. But were the two particles actually entangled? This is where the famous Bell’s Inequality test comes in, named for the British physicist who devised the theorem in 1964.
“The key aspect of the Bell test is that it is extremely unforgiving: any imperfection in the preparation, manipulation and read-out protocol will cause the particles to fail the test,” said Dr Juan Pablo Dehollain, a UNSW Research Associate who with Dr Stephanie Simmons was a lead author of the Nature Nanotechnology paper.
“Nevertheless, we have succeeded in passing the test, and we have done so with the highest ‘score’ ever recorded in an experiment,” he added.
“Passing the Bell test with such a high score is the strongest possible proof that we have the operation of a quantum computer entirely under control,” said Morello. “In particular, we can access the purely-quantum type of code that requires the use of the delicate quantum entanglement between two particles.”
In a classical computer, operating on two bits, you can write four possible code words: 00, 01, 10 and 11. In a quantum computer, in addition to the bits, you can also write their superpositions such as (01 + 10), or (00 + 11).
“These codes are perfectly legitimate in a quantum computer, but don’t exist in a classical one,” said UNSW Research Fellow Stephanie Simmons, the paper’s co-author. “This is, in some sense, the reason why quantum computers can be so much more powerful: with the same number of bits, they allow us to write a computer code that contains many more words, and we can use those extra words to run a different algorithm that reaches the result in a smaller number of steps.”
“What I find mesmerising about this experiment is that this seemingly innocuous ‘quantum computer code’ — (01 + 10) and (00 + 11) — has puzzled, confused and infuriated generations of physicists over the past 80 years.
“Now, we have shown beyond any doubt that we can write this code inside a device that resembles the silicon microchips you have on your laptop or your mobile phone. It’s a real triumph of electrical engineering,” he added.
Journal reference: Juan P. Dehollain, Stephanie Simmons, Juha T. Muhonen, Rachpon Kalra, Arne Laucht, Fay Hudson, Kohei M. Itoh, David N. Jamieson, Jeffrey C. McCallum, Andrew S. Dzurak, Andrea Morello. Bell’s inequality violation with spins in silicon. Nature Nanotechnology, 2015; DOI: 10.1038/NNANO.2015.262


Magnets in isolation (Stephen Blundell, Physics)
Professor in Physics
The magnetic properties of solids are due not only to the atoms that comprise them, but the way they interact with each other. A single of atom of iron does not behave as a magnet, but a piece of iron does, even though you might think that a piece of iron is “nothing but” a collection of iron atoms. When iron atoms come together inside a crystal (see picture), they do something extraordinary: each atom interacts with its neighbours by a quantum-mechanical mechanism which results in all the atoms behaving like little magnets that point in the same direction. The net result is a magnetized piece of iron, something that can then magically pick up paperclips, but it’s all due to the interactions between the atoms, not a property of the iron atoms themselves.
Sometimes, however, we want to study the magnetic properties of individual atoms, to find out how they behave without all those interactions. To do that, we need to isolate them, and one of the best ways of doing that is to arrange them in a crystal and surround them with non-magnetic atoms that isolate them from each other. If you’ve ever grown crystals in a school experiment, you may well have encountered copper sulphate. A small piece of copper sulphate is suspended on a piece of string into a jam jar with copper sulphate solution in it. Over a period of days, a beautiful blue copper sulphate starts to grow. Inside the crystal are magnetic copper ions, but they are surrounded by some big, bulky molecules (the sulphate ions and some waters of crystallization) and this keeps the copper ions from talking to each other. They’ve become isolated.
Copper sulphate crystals are only weakly magnetic. You would only notice their magnetic properties by placing them next to a very strong magnet. But, in contrast to iron, we can model those magnetic properties by considering the magnetism be due to individual, non-interacting copper ions. That makes the physical modelling much easier, and allows us to learn about how individual copper ions behave.
However, even though we think the copper ions are isolated and non-interacting, their interactions with each other haven’t been eliminated, just reduced to very low levels. If the crystals are cooled to around one degree above absolute zero then these weak interactions start to become relevant. This is fortunate because, otherwise, we would break one of the lesser-known, but still important, laws of thermodynamics: the third law.
The first law of thermodynamics is the famous one that says energy must be conserved. The second law says that entropy always increases (why your desk gets automatically messier over time but never tidies itself without determined intervention). The third law insists that entropy must go to zero at absolute zero of temperature. However, for a set of isolated magnetic atoms each atom would each have the freedom to do its own thing, blissfully ignoring its neighbours, resulting in a multiplicity of different possible states, incompatible with zero entropy. Thus, at sufficiently low temperature, when thermal energy is scarce, those weak interactions start to become relevant, linking the atomic magnets and making them drop into one collective state, in accordance with the third law. Thus, however much you try, you’re never in perfect isolation.
A Very Short Introduction to Magnetism, S. J. Blundell, Oxford University Press (2012).
Concepts in Thermal Physics, S. J. Blundell and K. M. Blundell, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press (2010).
Check out the Oxford Quantum Materials YouTube channel, run by the Department of Physics in the University: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtZ4lUlasLqmulrMXLNMXhw
Mansfield Isolation Conversation
- 3rd and 4th Century Social Distancing in the Desert (Jenn Strawbridge, Theology)
- Avoiding an Empty Universe with Solitary Neutrinos (Steve Biller, Physics)
- Daniel Defoe's Journal of the Plague Year (Ros Ballaster, English)
- Doing Community in Isolation: Mosques, Mecca and One Direction
- Isolation and Revelation (Alison Salvesen, Oriental Studies)
- Magnets in isolation (Stephen Blundell, Physics)
- Oscar Wilde in prison (Michèle Mendelssohn, English)
- Physically, but not socially, isolated: Insights from a small Micronesian island
- Power and politics amidst COVID-19 seclusions—perspectives from geography (Amber Murrey, Geography)
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s ‘Fears in Solitude’ (Ruth Scobie, English)
- Social Distancing in Ancrene Wisse (Lucinda Rumsey, English)
- Social distancing and quantum computing – are we all qubits now? (Jason Smith, Materials Science)
- Thomas Nashe: ‘Plague’s Prisoner’ (Chris Salamone, English)
- Even buildings need isolation (Sinan Acikgoz, Engineering)


Image Credit: Smile Fight/Shutterstock.com
Researchers have claimed that nano-diamond batteries could last for 28,000 years. Such batteries would not only be beneficial to the world of electric cars and mobile phones, but their application would also be useful in aerospace and medical technology. This article discusses the development, commercialization, and application of novel nano-diamond batteries.
In 2016, at the annual lecture of the Cabot Institute, University of Bristol, researchers, for the first time, demonstrated a novel technology that could use nuclear waste to generate energy. They named their product “diamond batteries”. In 2020, a California-based startup company, NDB, has developed a highly efficient nano-diamond battery that could last up to 28,000 years without charging. This battery is also based on the utilization of nuclear waste.
Commonly available electricity-generation technologies utilize energy for moving a magnet via a coil of wire to produce a current. However, the diamond battery can generate current when placed close to a radioactive source. A team of researchers from the University of Bristol has developed a human-made diamond. This material can generate a low electrical power when put under the influence of a radioactive field.
The researchers at the Cabot Institute have used Nickel-63 as a radioactive source for demonstrating a prototype 'diamond battery'. The radioactive source is encapsulated inside a diamond to produce a nuclear-powered battery. However, the team envisioned using radioactive carbon-14 to obtain a battery with greater efficiency. Tom Scott, Professor in Materials at the University of Bristol, explained the advantages of the technology. He said that this technology would involve the long-term production of clean energy from nuclear waste and not require any maintenance as there are no moving parts or emissions.
Development of Nano-Diamond Batteries by NDB
In 2020, NDB announced two proof-of-concept tests conducted at the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge University and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. As stated above, the nano-diamond battery from the NDB used nuclear waste to generate power. The radioactive core is protected with multiple layers of synthetic diamonds or polycrystalline diamond.
The polycrystalline diamond is an exceptionally thermally conductive material. This material also can contain the radiation within the device. The use of a polycrystalline diamond makes the nano-diamond battery immensely tough and tamperproof.
Technologies behind the development of nano-diamond batteries that ensure radiation, thermal, and mechanical safety are discussed below:
- Diamond Nuclear Voltaic (DNV) is a device that consists of a semiconductor. Individual units are connected to form a stack arrangement and fabricated to create a positive and negative contact surface analogous to a standard battery system. This design improves the system's overall efficiency, which includes the generation of a substantial amount of electricity and a multi-layer safety shield for the product.
- All radioactive isotopes can produce high amounts of heat energy. A single crystalline diamond (SCD) in the DNV unit and the strategic placement of radioactive source between the DNV units prevents self-absorption of heat by the radioisotope.
- NDB technology has utilized alpha, beta, and neutron radiations using boron-10 doping, helping to convert the extra neutron into the alpha ray. This design also enables the rapid conversion of radiation to usable electricity.
- The advanced flexible structural design enables it to take any shape based on its application. This feature makes NDB extremely market-friendly.
- The utilization of radioactive waste is a subject that many have not researched. NDB uses radioactive waste and reuses them by reprocessing and recycling. This technology ensures sustainability and gives rise to a clean energy source, and Achieving this has the added advantage of ensuring environmental safety.
Researchers believe that this technology would reduce the costs and challenges of storing nuclear waste in the most useful form. NDB envisioned the coexistence of innovation and restoration of a healthy environment. Implementing their innovative technology would improve the standards of living and pave the way towards the development of eco-friendly, green, and sustainable energy.
Applications of Nano-Diamond Batteries
Automotive: This battery could bring about a revolution in the world of electric cars. Researchers believe that this technology will benefit the electric car industry due to its immense longevity and efficiency, unlike any other existing batteries.
Medical Technology: These batteries could immensely contribute to medical devices, especially implantable devices, for example, pacemakers and hearing aids. The long battery life of nano-diamond batteries would be extremely beneficial for patients using such medical implants.
Aerospace: Recent advancements in space technology include electric aircraft development that has created the demand for batteries with longevity and safety. Space vehicles and satellites are currently supported by solar power, which is subjected to an unsettling space environment. NDB powers electric aircraft, drones, and space stations for a more extended period.
Electronics: The use of NDB for powering standard electronic devices such as laptops and smartphones negates the need to charge such devices continually. NDB claims the use of their product would benefit the consumers by providing them with power outlet independent devices and increasing personal quantum computing and the device’s computational power.
Defense: NDB can be used in surveillance systems and electronics.
The Future of Nano-Diamond Batteries
As our day to day life is heavily dependent on mobile battery-powered devices, there is a rapid increase in the demand for efficient and cost-effective batteries. Conventional batteries have several concerns that include global warming and waste accumulation. The nano-diamond batteries overcome these limitations of conventional batteries in terms of longevity and widespread applications. Dr. John Shawe-Taylor, University College of London, stated that this technology could be the solution to the world's energy crisis with 'close to zero environmental impact and energy transportation costs.'
The team at NDB announced that the first commercial prototype battery would be available later this year. They further expressed the high demand for their product by stating that many organizations, including aerospace companies and a leader in nuclear fuel cycle products, are lined up as customers.
References and Further Reading
NDB Technology [Online] Available at: https://ndb.technology/
The University of Bristol (2016) 'Diamond-age' of power generation as nuclear batteries developed. [Online] The University of Bristol. Available at: https://phys.org/news/2016-11-diamond-age-power-nuclear-batteries.html
Chatterjee, Abhishek. (2020) A battery made from nuclear waste that can last 28,000 years. [Online] The Hindu Times. Available at: https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/a-battery-made-from-nuclear-waste-that-can-last-28000-years/article32484905.ece


In the future, we will have Artificial Intelligent computers, which will be able to think, reason at the speed of thought. There will be computers that will store entire databases about the future, and those computers will “teleport” this information to your personal computer screen. In other words, it will upload into your personal computer, the future, and the past.
If we were to attempt to build a system that is capable of instantaneously uploading our thoughts and putting them on a remote server, and then using that server to run our entire computer system, and our entire life software, all without having to understand or even understand programming languages, then we would probably need to call it “quantum AI.” However, many researchers feel that this is simply a strawman tactic meant to raise funding and prevent real progress from being made.
In principle, once we are able to build a system that is able to quickly and easily duplicate every bit of data that is in one second of real-time, then we would essentially have created a quantum computer. The original question might be, how does a quantum computer work? And the answer is, using the latest technology and techniques. The transistors would be quantum chips, and while they can be shrunk down to sizes where they look like regular chips, their insides are different.
Inside the chip would be multiple millions of transistors, which when put together would form a network of thousands of lasers, all interacting with each other and producing millions of bits of information, which could be read by another device. By the time the information has been read, it could be reconstructed by measuring the positions of the individual bits. If the position of a trans transistor is transfigured, the information produced is multiplied, and the result is usually sent to a computer, which can be analyzed and calculated. In theory, once this type of computing is realized, it will be much easier for us to go from raw information to digital information, which will allow us to solve problems much faster than ever before.
What is Quantum AI?
Many leading intellectuals, including Albert Einstein, Max Tegmark, Stephen Wolfram, and Lee Wrinkle believe we will meet our Space Age goal of sending people to Mars within this century. In their view, quantum AI will enable us to design intelligent software that can perform every task we need or desire it to do.
So, what is quantum AI and how will we utilize its power in the future?
To understand what is quantum computing, one must first know what it is not. Unlike classical computers, which operate by storing classical information in memory, quantum machines work by generating quantum data. This data is fed through channels into channels on the hardware’s physical processors where it is processed and results are sent back to the programmers in the form of output and results. However, in order to understand what is quantum AI, one must also appreciate what is deep learning.
Deep learning uses quantum algorithms to achieve superior results than what can be achieved with classical algorithms. Because quantum computing operates by generating virtual outcomes, the programmers are able to make use of simulated execution environments in order to guide the program’s growth. The environment used for these virtual environments can be completely different from the environments utilized by classical computers. For instance, one might utilize a world with virtual pets where each pet plays a role in the programmers’ development.
While this might seem highly illogical, developers have found that this technique can lead to extremely effective deep learning algorithms.
How does quantum artificial intelligence (RAI) differ from classical computing?
In the case of classical computers, the developers need to deal with problems that cannot be solved by using classical algorithms. However, with the use of quantum computing, developers are able to generate solutions for problems that cannot previously be solved. In addition, ai systems can be made as efficient as possible in order to ensure that they meet the requirements of their customers.
As mentioned earlier, developers utilize quantum computing to address two major application areas. First, they can make ai systems as efficient as possible so that they can be used for solving practical problems. In these application areas, the developers use quantum computing to tackle problems such as optimization. Optimization is a common problem whose solutions are difficult to find because they are typically complex or involve highly specialized systems.
Another application area for which developers utilize quantum computing is machine learning. Machine learning is an area of science that utilizes large sets of numbers to approximate the results of scientific calculations. One example of this application is the Google Ion machine learning project which uses quantum data to optimize the search engine results.
As stated above, researchers can make use of quantum algorithms and techniques to solve a wide variety of problems. However, these methods are not meant to be used to implement highly specialized solutions for currently known problems. Instead, the developers make use of classical AI methods in their applications. Classical AI methods work by making use of rules that were proven to be effective in the past, which allow the human mind to emulate them. For instance, if one had to solve a mathematical problem using calculus, he could use proof from the history of mathematics in order to make his solution work.
However, the developers of quantum ai are trying to use more advanced techniques that can be designed using more powerful software. This would mean that even though these methods do not work well on classical computers, they can be used for designing artificially intelligent machine learning algorithms. This software will then be able to solve problems in the future using the principles of quantum computing. Ultimately, this means that we may soon reach the point when human minds can be artificially combined with computer software in order to create entirely intelligent machines that can solve any type of problem imaginable. In the future, you may witness the first true artificial superintelligent machine.
Is Quantum Storage possible?
The technology known as Quantum Storage is now becoming more popular day by day. What it stands for is ‘qbits’, which are qubits of information that can be stored in the form of a digital bit, no need to worry about colouring them up as they can be in any one of billions of different colours. These are stored in what is called a qubit chip.
Information centres, otherwise known as servers are what you will need in order to store your information for you. The servers themselves don’t actually store the information; rather they store it all on delicate hard drives, which are extremely delicate and can crash at any time if the information stored on them is not handled properly. It is in the memory of the server that the Quantum Information Centre stores the data for you. Once the machine is working at its optimal capacity, information is retrieved from the servers and given back to you in the form of digital files which you can access from your desktop.
Quantum storage is therefore theoretically possible because once your computer has retrieved the information from one of the information centres, it immediately starts saving it to another one of your Quantum Information Centers, making it possible for you to access your files from anywhere in the world, even on another laptop. This is just one of the things that Quantum Storage offers you. In fact, there are many other benefits, including eliminating the long delays that come with hard disk drives when transferring large amounts of data.
Quantum Storage is a sort of software that runs on a computer and allows users of a given network to send each other information. For example, if you were having ten files saved on a USB drive and you wanted to transfer the information to your home computer, it would be possible just by plugging the USB drive into a USB port on the computer and saving the file to the relevant folder. The software would run on the computer and immediately begin saving files to the relevant folder, thus allowing the files to be uploaded into the relevant Quantum Information Centre (QIC). The files would then be available for download by any user who is logged into the network.


Australia’s first Women in STEM Ambassador, Professor Lisa Harvey-Smith, discusses the future of astrophysics, the importance of science communication and what it takes to boost STEM diversity.
Use this article as personal professional reading or with students to challenge them about their unconscious bias.
Use the downloadable STEM pack below to challenge this in your classroom.
Word Count: 1600
Not many people have the skill to draw an entire room full of everyday Australians – scientists, science-enthusiasts and the science-illiterate alike – to a two-hour talk on complex astrophysics.
This ability to capture and communicate the universe with such vibrancy is among many reasons why she was last year named Australia’s first Women in STEM Ambassador.
In her two-year appointment, Professor Harvey-Smith will focus on accelerating the cultural and systematic changes already underway in Australia to keep women in the STEM workforce.
She said women in STEM were often driven out of science by a lack of work flexibility or a toxic workplace culture. So to boost their numbers, she is tackling gender stereotypes that form at a young age.
Smashing stereotypes herself, Professor Harvey-Smith’s research focuses on an intergalactic event that will change our night sky forever.
Every hour, the Milky Way moves 400,000 kilometres closer to a neighbouring galaxy, Andromeda. In 3.8 billion years, these two galaxies will collide, causing brilliant bursts of star formations, the fusion of supermassive black holes and the ignition of fiery gas streams that will tear through space at almost the speed of light.
But before we worry about that, she explains that in half a billion years, humans will need to think about leaving Earth to get away from our hot, expanding sun.
Do you think humans are more likely to move to another planet or to live on a floating space station once the Earth becomes uninhabitable?
The human body doesn’t do too well in space. Although we’ve grown quite good over the past 20-30 years living in space stations, after a couple of years humans come back weak, with diminished eye sight.
Our bodies have adapted over hundreds and thousands of years to live in gravity, so we’ll have to develop spinning space stations to create artificial gravity – otherwise our bodies will waste away.
Alternatively, when the Earth is too hot we could move to the outer solar system on an icy moon like Saturn’s Enceladus. I think either way, we have some big problems to solve here on Earth today.
We’re destroying our own planet and it’s such an imminent problem. There’s no way we can possibly live on Mars, or another planet or moon, if we can’t control climate on our Earth now.
You’ve played a key role in developing the CSIRO Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which will not only expand our understanding of the universe but also drive technological developments worldwide. What are some examples of these technologies and why is this important?
It’s very exciting working in astronomy because we not only discover things in the universe, but also all of the money spent on space research is also spent for things that help us on Earth – that’s something people need to remember when you hear billions of dollars being spent on astronomy research.
The technologies we take for granted come from the most unexpected types of research that often seem unrelated.
Medical technology and imaging were also developed through fundamental leaps in astronomy and other sciences. Some of the medical technologies used to look at changes in moles to check for melanoma growth stem from astronomy research, for instance.
And the SKA helped developed faster, more reliable wi-fi because of a project at CSIRO to look for exploding black holes.
For the SKA, we’re developing cameras with multiple pixels for radio imaging. In radio astronomy, cameras previously just used one pixel to take images of space, which sounds weird, but it’s true.
We hope that these developments can be translated to medical technologies, for example medical imaging of the body to detect and treat cancers. That could be a very important spin-off.
How and when did you know you wanted to become a science communicator and educator?
It’s really about the way I got into science myself – through some amazing science communicators I grew up with in the UK. My key influencers were television and books.
The BBC had a program called Tomorrow’s World. It imagined the world of the future, but it wasn’t all silver foil, monorails and hovercrafts! It explored how the world can change with technology – that was so inspiring.
I always had this passion to teach but I didn’t want to be a teacher like my mum because, frankly, it’s a very difficult profession. I have the greatest respect for teachers in schools, but I knew it wasn’t for me.
I wanted to use my creativity rather than teach in a confined setting – that’s what I love about science communication, the creative aspect. The challenge of breaking out of my science niche and cutting through the jargon and explain these cool concepts. I find it challenging and engaging and I love watching people’s faces as the penny drops.
How do you think new technologies like machine learning, automation and quantum computing will affect the field of astrophysics over the next 50 years?
Machine learning and the automation of every part of astronomy research is definitely coming – we need it.
We have so much data coming from our new telescopes – going from taking images of just one pixel to multiple pixels and from one telescope to the 130,000 telescopes planned in Western Australia – we will need to use one giant supercomputer brain to study the sky.
Astronomers used to just go through data and images to study space but we can’t do that anymore. There isn’t enough human capacity in the world to do that, so we have to teach computers to be the new scientists.
That’s a very difficult thing to do because humans are surprisingly intelligent compared to computers – computers can only follow specific rules, whereas we have a bit more agency. These new technologies will be massively important and game-changing.
Research will not only be faster, but we will be able to find things we didn’t expect.
When we take a picture of the sky for a whole night using a camera on a telescope, we analyse every millisecond of that picture. Every millisecond the sky changes – there are things flashing and exploding, disappearing and appearing. Those are the flashes of light from a distant universe created by things we’ve not discovered yet.
And those are what bring in the game-changing discoveries. That’s a fundamental shift in the way we do science, because now the computer is alerting us to the things that we don’t expect to see.
Sounds like a great time to be in astrophysics!
What did you wish more people knew about astrophysics?
Astrophysics can be done by anyone.
We have so many citizen science projects where anyone can take part. You can go online and look up Galaxy Zoo, or Citizen Science and you can take part in classifying galaxies, look at how the sky is changing and discover supernovas and star explosions.
And the findings will be used in real research, so I wish people would get involved. It’s really exciting and a great opportunity to be a real scientist in your own home.
Congratulations on being appointed Australia’s first Women in STEM Ambassador! There’s currently a lot of funding pouring into initiatives aimed at increasing girls and women’s participation in STEM – why do you think Australia needs a Women in STEM Ambassador?
My role really is important because it works on a national scale to raise awareness of issues that create roadblocks to girls studying STEM in school at advance levels and progressing into STEM jobs and careers.
Once women are in science, they’re driven out by bad workplace culture and a lack of work flexibility, particularly around the time when they may have caring responsibility. There are many different issues, but really I’m trying to accelerate the cultural change that’s already underway in this country.
In particular, I want to tackle some of the stereotypes that form from a young age and, this year, I’m focusing on early learning facilities. We want young people to understand that STEM is for girls and boys, and it can lead to amazing, exciting, fun, world-changing careers.
I really want to go to primary schools and drive this message home, and work with education departments across the country to help young people make the most of their education.
What have you learnt in this role so far and what do you hope to achieve for the remainder of your time as Ambassador?
I’ve learnt that the education system in Australia is very complex. Targeting young children is really a good way to make change before they start forming stereotypes and before they start making decisions about their future study.
Talking to 14-year-olds is actually too late – they’ve already formed a lot of those opinions. Although girls actually outperform boys in many maths and science tests, they have a lower opinion of their ability to do those subjects.
It’s really about breaking stereotypes, building confidence and boosting the understanding of young women about what STEM really means.
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Ordinary light could drive quantum computersby Eric Smalley, Technology Research News
One reason quantum computers are not likely to show up in your neighborhood electronics store any time soon is the laboratory equipment needed to build today's prototypes is hard to come by and difficult to use.
With some improvements to a couple of key devices, though, that could change. Thanks to a scheme concocted by researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, researchers should be able to build quantum computers using common linear optics equipment.
Practical quantum computers could be developed sooner with the means for building prototypes within reach of a greater number of researchers. Quantum computers are expected to solve certain problems like cracking codes and searching large databases much faster than any other conceivable computer.
To achieve quantum computing, researchers manipulate the quantum states of photons or atoms to perform logic operations. Photon manipulation traditionally requires nonlinear optics methods, which use powerful lasers to coax photons from special materials.
The effect the lasers have on the atoms of these materials increases faster than the increase in intensity of the light. Ordinarily, the effect is proportional. This nonlinearity produces strange phenomena, like entangled pairs of photons, that are useful for quantum computing.
"We show that nonlinear optical elements can be simulated using linear optics and photo-detectors, a very surprising result," said Emanuel Knill, a mathematician at Los Alamos National Laboratory. "It opens up an entirely new path toward realizing quantum computers."
Quantum computers based on the Los Alamos linear optics scheme would create quantum bits, or qubits, by using two opposite conditions of individual photons to represent the 0 and 1 values used in binary computing.
There are two sets of opposite conditions. The first is the two possible paths a photon can take when it encounters a beam splitter. The second is either of two pairs of polarizations. Photons are polarized, or oriented, in one of four directions: vertical, horizontal, and two diagonals. Each polarization is paired with its opposite: vertical with horizontal and diagonal with diagonal.
Multiple bits can be used to represent larger numbers. Four bits can represent 24 or 16 numbers and 24 bits can represent 224 or more than 16 million numbers. Ordinary computers process these numbers one at a time. So, for example, in order to find one number out of 16 million an ordinary computer will have to look through an average of eight million numbers.
What makes a qubit different from an ordinary bit is that it can be in a third state, the quantum mechanical condition of superposition, which is essentially a mix of both 0 and 1. This means it's possible to perform a series of quantum mechanical operations on a series of qubits all at once. For some applications, the number of quantum mechanical operations is exponentially smaller than the number of steps required for a classical computer.
The quantum mechanical operations are sequenced to make up logic gates, which perform the basic mathematics of computing. Most quantum logic gate schemes require particles in more complicated quantum arrangements like entanglement. According to Knill, however, it is possible to create logic gates by manipulating the photons that are in the superpositions created by the linear optics.
Quantum computers based on photons rather than atoms will be easier to network because there will be no need to transfer quantum information between atoms and photons. "The only realistic proposals for long distance quantum communication are based on photons," Knill said.
Before the scheme can be implemented, however, researchers will need to improve both the light source and the photon detector. Two recently developed single-photon emitters hold out the promise that the necessary equipment could be available to researchers within a few years, said Knill.
"I think it's a neat idea," said John Preskill, professor of theoretical physics and director of the Institute for Quantum Information at the California Institute of Technology. "Any theoretical ideas that help make realizations of quantum logic technically less demanding might turn out to be important ideas."
Preskill led a research team that proposed a different scheme for quantum computing using linear optics, though that scheme requires its initial state to be prepared using nonlinear optics.
"There have been a lot of previous discussions of using information encoded in photons to [make] universal quantum gates, but always involving some kind of nonlinear coupling between photons, and those are hard to manage," said Preskill. "The stuff that Knill et al are talking about in principle is much easier. It uses tools that are available in lots of laboratories," he said.
Despite the potential for linear optics to speed things up, it would be a significant achievement if in 25 years a quantum computer can solve problems that are beyond the reach of classical computers, said Knill.
"Quantum computation by any means is a long way off," he said. "Our proposal adds to the tool box of possible experimental realizations, which may help speed things up. The fact is, the necessary experiments are extremely demanding."
Knill's research colleagues were Raymond Laflamme of Los Alamos National Laboratory and Gerard J. Milburn of the University of Queensland in Australia. They published the research in the January 4, 2001 issue of Nature. The research was funded by the Department of Energy and the National Security Agency.
Preskill's research colleagues were Daniel Gottesman of the University of California at Berkeley and Alexei Kitaev of Microsoft Research. Their work is scheduled the published in the journal Physical Review A. The research was funded by the Department of Energy and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
Timeline: 25 years
TRN Categories: Quantum Computing
Story Type: News
Related Elements: Technical paper, "A scheme for efficient quantum computation with linear optics," Nature, January 4, 2001; Technical paper, "Encoding a qudit in an oscillator," http://arXiv.org/abs/quant-ph/?0008040
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Over the years, supercomputers have played a pivotal role in pushing the frontiers of science. Earlier this year, Meta launched one of the fastest AI supercomputers, the AI Research SuperCluster (RSC), to build sophisticated AI models that can learn from trillions of examples; navigate hundreds of different languages; seamlessly analyse text, images, and video together; build AR tools etc.
However, the quest for something even faster than supercomputers led to the development of quantum computers. Last year, the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) introduced the world’s fastest programmable superconducting quantum computer; Zuchongzhi 2.1 is a million times faster than a conventional computer.
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At last year’s I/O conference, Google unveiled a Quantum AI campus in Santa Barbara, California, complete with a quantum data centre, quantum hardware research labs, and quantum processor chip fab facilities. The tech giant plans to build a useful, error-corrected quantum computer within a decade.
Quantum computers of the future will solve complex problems faster and more efficiently than supercomputers. But does it mean supercomputers will become obsolete? Let’s find out.
The first supercomputer came into existence in the 60s. However, the modern supercomputers were developed much later in the 90s. In 1997, Intel developed its first 1 teraFLOPS supercomputer, ‘ASCI red’. Today, the Fugaku supercomputer located at RIKEN Centre for Computational Science in Japan, has thrice the processing power as the world’s second-fastest computer, IBM’s Summit. The Fugaku has clocked a maximum performance of 442,010 teraFLOPs.
Quantum computers, as a concept, were first proposed in the 80s by Richard Feynman and Yuri Manin. In 1998, Isaac Chuang of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Neil Gershenfeld of MIT, and Mark Kubinec of the University of California built the first quantum computer (2-qubit). In 2017, IBM announced the world’s first quantum computer for commercial use.
“Quantum computing has seen a major boost in the last 10-15 years. Companies worldwide are investing in various quantum technologies and making their quantum hardware.
“Today, we are in the nisq (noisy intermediate-scale quantum) era, working on 100-qubit quantum systems. They may not deliver perfect results (read noisy and erroneous), but you can still work with them. However, we are still very far from achieving the maturity level to have a fully fault-tolerant quantum computer,” said Srinjoy Ganguly, senior data scientist.
Be it IBM’s Sierra or the Sunway TaihuLight, the supercomputers we see today operate at a high compute to I/O ratio. Compared to a conventional computer, a supercomputer runs on multiple processors. The Sunway TaihuLight, one of the top 5 fastest supercomputers globally, has around 40,960 processing modules, each with 260 processor cores.
While a conventional computer works on binary, quantum computers rely on a unit of information called qubits (subatomic particles such as electrons or photons) with far greater processing power. The qubits only work in a controlled quantum state–under sub-zero temperature or in ultra-high-vacuum chambers.
Quantum computing is predicated on two phenomena:
Superposition is the ability of qubits to be in different states simultaneously, allowing them to work on a million computations at the same time. However, qubits are sensitive to their environment, so they can’t maintain their state for long periods. As a result, quantum computers can’t be used to store information long-term.
Einstein described quantum entanglement as spooky action at a distance. It is the ability of two or more quantum systems to become entangled irrespective of how far apart they are. Thanks to the correlation between the entangled qubits, gauging the state of one qubit gives information about the other qubit. This particular property accelerates the processing speed of quantum computers.
Supercomputers are bound by the normal laws of physics. More the processors, the better the speed. Quantum computers are far more efficient than supercomputers as the former harnesses the power of quantum mechanics to carry out calculations. In 2020, China claimed to have developed a quantum computer that performs computations 100 trillion times faster than any supercomputer.
Development and infrastructure cost
Building a supercomputer would cost somewhere between USD 100 million to USD 300 million. For example, the Chinese Sunway TaihuLight cost around USD 273 million. Additionally, the annual maintenance charges fall between USD 4 to 7 million.
Quantum computers are prohibitively expensive. The hardware part alone will cost tens of billions of dollars. The cost per qubit has to come down drastically to make quantum computers commercially viable. At present, a single qubit costs around USD 10,000. Also, qubits operate in a quantum state either in a sub-zero temperature or a vacuum environment, which is very expensive to maintain.
Though a non-quantum algorithm can be run on quantum computers, a quantum algorithm, such as Shor’s algorithm for factoring and Grover’s algorithm for searching an unstructured database, doesn’t work on a supercomputer.
Applications of Supercomputers
Both quantum computing and supercomputing are deployed in cases where large databases are involved. Let’s look at a few use cases:
Weather forecasting: The weather reports we receive on our smart devices come from a supercomputer. Besides predicting the possibility of rain in your city, supercomputers also predict the path of hurricanes and help save thousands of lives.
Last year, the UK’s Met Office signed a 1.2 billion pound deal with Microsoft to develop the world’s most powerful supercomputer to help with preparedness in the face of extreme weather events.
Scientific research: Supercomputers provide insights into complex fields of study. Laboratory experiments are expensive and time-consuming. Hence it is logical to use supercomputers to simulate these laboratory experiments. For example, multiple supercomputers were leveraged across the world to fight the COVID virus and develop vaccines.
Application of quantum computers
“At present, we cannot perform operations on a qubit that lasts more than a few microseconds. Because of this, the quantum data gets lost, making it difficult to be used for AI or other general tasks,” said Ganguly.
Researchers are working on QRAM, a computing unit that will allow storing quantum states for several hours. Quantum computers have applications in fields such as:
Drug design & development: Quantum computers are used to test drug combinations and their interactions. Traditionally, drugs are developed via the trial and error method, which is expensive and risky at the same time.
Computational chemistry: Unlike supercomputers, quantum computers focus on the existence of both 0 and 1 simultaneously, offering immense machine power to map the molecules effectively.
Cryptography: Quantum computers could facilitate secure communications with the help of quantum key distribution. However, there is also a downside.
Recently, US President Joe Biden signed a memorandum asking government agencies to implement quantum-resistant cryptography on their most important systems. The RSA encryption, the most widely used form of encryption, is based on 2048-bit numbers. A quantum computer could break this encryption. As of yet, we don’t have a quantum computer with such capability.


Scientists at Princeton University used a scanning tunneling microscope to show the atomic structure of an iron wire into an atom wide on a lead surface. The enlarged portion of the image shows the quantum probability of the content in the wire of an elusive particle called the Majorana fermion. It is important to note that the picture shows particles at the end of the wire, which is exactly where the theoretical calculations predicted for many years.
If you thought that the search for the Higgs boson - the elusive particle that gives matter mass - was epic, then think about the physicists who were trying to find a way to discover another subatomic particle hidden since the 1930s, when the first assumption appeared.
But now, thanks to the use of 2 fantastic large microscopes, this very strange and potentially revolutionary particle has been discovered.
Imagine the Majorana fermion, a particle that is also its own antiparticle, a candidate for dark matter, and a possible mediator of quantum computing.
Fermion Majorana is named after the Italian physicist, Ettore Majorana, who formulated a theory describing this unique particle. In 1937, Majorana predicted that a stable particle can exist in nature, which is both matter and antimatter. In our everyday experience there is also matter (which is found in abundance in our Universe) and antimatter (which is extremely rare). If matter and antimatter meet, they annihilate, disappearing in a flash of energy. One of the biggest mysteries of modern physics is how the Universe became more matter than antimatter. Logic dictates that matter and antimatter are parts of the same thing, like opposing sides of a coin, and should have been created at the same pace. In this case, the universe would have been destroyed before it could establish itself. However, some process after the Big Bang shows that more matter was produced than antimatter, so it is important that matter won, which fills the Universe that we know and love today.
However, the Majorana fermion is different in its properties and is also an antiparticle. While the electron is matter, and the positron is the anti-material particle of the electron, the Majorana fermion is both matter and antimatter. It is this material / anti-material duality that has made this little beast so difficult to trace over the past 8 years. But the physicists did, and in order to accomplish the task, it took tremendous ingenuity and an enormously large microscope.
The theory shows that the Majorana fermion should extend on the edge of other materials. Thus, a team of Princeton University created an iron wire into an atom thick on the lead surface and made an increase at the end of the wire using a mega-microscope in the laboratory of ultra-low vibrations at Yadwin Hall in Princeton.
“This is the easiest way to see the Majorana fermion, which is expected to be created on the edge of some materials,” says leading physicist Ali Yazdani from Princeton University, New Jersey, in a press release. "If you want to find this particle inside the material, you must use a microscope that allows you to see where it really is." Yazdani's research was published in the journal Science on Thursday (October 2). The search for the fermoion Majorana is significantly different from the search for other subatomic particles that are more illuminated in the wide press. Hunting for the Higgs boson (and similar particles) requires the most powerful accelerators on the planet to generate the enormous energy collision necessary to simulate conditions soon after the Big Bang. This is the only way to isolate the rapidly decaying Higgs boson, and then study the products of its decay.
In contrast, the Majorana fermion can only be detected in a substance by its effect on the atoms and the forces surrounding it - so no powerful accelerators are required, but the use of powerful scanning tunneling microscopes is necessary. Very fine tuning of the target material is also required in order for the Majorana fermion to be isolated and displayed.
This strict control requires extreme cooling of thin iron wires to ensure superconductivity. Superconductivity is achieved when thermal fluctuations of a material are reduced to such an extent that electrons can pass through this material with zero resistance. By reducing the target to 272 degrees Celsius — to one degree above absolute zero, or 1 Kelvin — ideal conditions can be achieved for the formation of the Majorana fermion.
“This shows that this (Majorana) signal exists only on the edge,” said Yazdani. “This is a key signature. If you do not have it, then this signal may exist for other reasons. ” Previous experiments removed possible signals from the Majorana fermion in similar installations, but this is the first time that a particular particle signal has appeared, after removing all sources of interference, exactly in the place where it is predicted to be. “This can only be achieved through an experimental setup — simple and without the use of exotic materials that could interfere,” Yazdani said.
“What is interesting is that it is very simple: it is lead and iron,” he said.
It has now been found that there are some interesting opportunities for several areas of modern physics, engineering and astrophysics.
For example, the Majorana fermion weakly interacts with ordinary matter, as does the ghostly neutrino. Physicists are not sure whether neutrinos have a separate antiparticle, or, like the fermoion of Majorana, is its own antiparticle. Neutrinos abound in the universe, and astronomers often point out that neutrinos are a large part of the dark matter that is thought to fill Cosmos. Probably, neutrinos are the same as particles of Majorana and Fermions. Majorana are also candidates for dark matter.
There is also a potentially revolutionary industrial application if physicists can encode matter with Majorana fermions. Currently, electrons are used in quantum computing, potentially creating computers that can solve previously innumerable systems in an instant. But electrons are notoriously difficult to control, and often violate calculations after interacting with other materials around them. However, the Majorana fermion, which is extremely weakly interacting with the material, is surprisingly stable due to its material / anti-material duality. For these reasons, scientists can use this particle, technically applying it in materials, coding, and, possibly, discovering more and more new methods of quantum computing.
Thus, although its discovery does not create drama and the pushing of relativistic particles together in the vacuum chambers of the LHC detectors, the more subtle discovery of the Majorana can develop a new approach to dark matter and revolutionize computing.
And, perhaps, the 80-year wait for its opening was worth it, after all.


Quantum physics analyzes a quantum system (QS) that has the ability to exist in a superposition of different states, simultaneously. Lately, scientists have developed computers, which are based on quantum mechanical principles, instead of classical physics.
Researchers and physicists from the Max Planck Institute generated a photon pair from the energy of an electron through a light source. The first photon will be used for quantum information transmission, while the other will be observed, as it displays the specific state of its twin, at any time. This is what we call entanglement.
Quantum Communication at a Higher Level
Entanglement is one of the most important phenomena of quantum mechanics. Imagine that two particles exist and put into a state where there is a strong correlation (i.e., entanglement).
Measuring one particle affects the state of the other. This correlation exists, even if there is a great distance between them. Now, the most important part is the ability for scientists to learn information about the state of one by measuring the state of the second. When another particle comes into play, interacting with the second of the entangled two, the change is reflected on the former as well. This creates a mirror-effect of the twin, essentially causing teleportation.
Quantum particles change their states the moment they are measured. So, it is very difficult to have a clear view of the information that is transmitted by a photon. The solution is the pair of photons which gives us the ability to use the first photon as a messenger of its twin.
Information Inside the Quantum World
In the near future, scientists expect that quantum computers will be the key to secure information technology. One example that shows evidence of the significance of quantum security is when a quantum form of cryptography was examined, and the results indicated that it is unbreakable, even for quantum systems.
The discovery, by the scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Solid State Research, was a unique source that created the pairs of photons. This source, with the path, is known as a scanning tunneling microscope (STM).
Previous research has used this microscope to study the surfaces of conducting or semiconducting materials. The device is based on an effect known as quantum tunneling. Concepts in quantum mechanics state that electrons have both wave and particle-like properties. Tunneling is an effect of this wavelike nature, a quantum mechanical effect.
A tunneling current occurs when electrons move through a barrier (which is called tunneling). Under the rules of classical physics, the electrons should not be able to move through.
The image shows us that when an electron (the wave) hits a barrier, the wave doesn’t abruptly end, but tapers off very quickly – exponentially. This is a quantum mechanical effect that occurs when electrons move through a barrier due to their wave-like properties. Tunneling depends on the thickness of the barrier; the wave does not get past a thick barrier. (Source: Public Domain)
The microscope has the ability to apply voltage to a metallic tip causing electrons to tunnel, over a short distance, to a sample. If an electron loses energy during this procedure, then light is produced. Photon pairs are also formed at a rate 10, 000 times higher than theories predict.
“According to theory, the probability of a photon pair forming is so low that we should never see it. But our experiments show that photon pairs are being generated at a much higher rate. That was a huge surprise for us”, underlines researcher Christopher Leon.
Pair of Photons -- Fast and Lossless Data Transmission
Physicists use detectors in order to measure the time intervals between the arriving photons. Until now, the researchers have not been sure if the photons are produced simultaneously, or in rapid succession, because of the lack of resolution of the detectors. Now it has been estimated that the photons are 50 trillionths of a second apart (in a tunneling junction).
This discovery opens up innovative developments, in photonic and quantum communication, for tunneling junctions. The main difference between previous methods and the tunneling junction is that while the other techniques employed intense laser light, the latter is electronic on an atomic scale.
Many scientists agree that in the next generation of computer chips, electronic components will be replaced by optical components with the use of a light source.
“The fact that photon pairs are generated, indicated that a complicated process must be taking place. This process is thrilling because it opens up a new perspective on how light is produced,” explains theoretic scientist Olle Gunnarsson.
Presently, a quantum computer has 2,000 qubits and is estimated to have the capability of solving calculations up to 10,000 times faster than a standard computer. Every innovative theorem or discovery on quantum computing is definitely a big step for science evolution, as this era of computing is hailed as the new wave in the use and processing of big data, which will bring great technological, social and scientific changes.
“We must be clear that when it comes to atoms, language can be used only as in poetry.” - Niels Bohr
Top Image: Quantum particles behave both as particles and waves. (Source: Pixabay)
1. Scanning Tunneling Microscopy, 2018. [Online] Available at: https://www.nanoscience.com/techniques/scanning-tunneling-microscopy/
2. Max Planck Society, 2019: Quantum communication: making two from one. [Online] Available at: https://phys.org/news/2019-05-quantum.html
3. Calvin F. Quate, 2019. Scanning tunneling microscope. [Online] Available at: https://www.britannica.com/technology/scanning-tunneling-microscope
4. Chad Orzel, 2018. How Do You Create Quantum Entanglement? [Online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/chadorzel/2017/02/28/how-do-you-create-quantum-entanglement/#10b0bd861732


For physicists trying to harness the power of electricity, no tool was more important than the vacuum tube. This lightbulb-like device controlled the flow of electricity and could amplify signals. In the early 20th century, vacuum tubes were used in radios, televisions and long-distance telephone networks.
But vacuum tubes had significant drawbacks: They generated heat; they were bulky; and they had a propensity to burn out. Physicists at Bell Labs, a spin-off of AT&T, were interested in finding a replacement.
Applying their knowledge of quantum mechanics—specifically how electrons flowed between materials with electrical conductivity—they found a way to mimic the function of vacuum tubes without those shortcomings.
They had invented the transistor. At the time, the invention did not grace the front page of any major news publications. Even the scientists themselves couldn’t have appreciated just how important their device would be.
“At the dawn of the 20th century, a new theory of matter and energy was emerging.”
First came the transistor radio, popularized in large part by the new Japanese company Sony. Spreading portable access to radio broadcasts changed music and connected disparate corners of the world.
Transistors then paved the way for NASA’s Apollo Project, which first took humans to the moon. And perhaps most importantly, transistors were made smaller and smaller, shrinking room-sized computers and magnifying their power to eventually create laptops and smartphones.
These quantum-inspired devices are central to every single modern electronic application that uses some computing power, such as cars, cellphones and digital cameras. You would not be reading this sentence without transistors, which are an important part of what is now called the first quantum revolution.
Quantum physicists Jonathan Dowling and Gerard Milburn coined the term “quantum revolution” in a 2002 paper. In it, they argue that we have now entered a new era, a second quantum revolution. “It just dawned on me that actually there was a whole new technological frontier opening up,” says Milburn, professor emeritus at the University of Queensland.
This second quantum revolution is defined by developments in technologies like quantum computing and quantum sensing, brought on by a deeper understanding of the quantum world and precision control down to the level of individual particles.
A quantum understanding
At the dawn of the 20th century, a new theory of matter and energy was emerging. Unsatisfied with classical explanations about the strange behavior of particles, physicists developed a new system of mechanics to describe what seemed to be a quantized, uncertain, probabilistic world.
One of the main questions quantum mechanics addressed was the nature of light. Eighteenth-century physicists believed light was a particle. Nineteenth-century physicists proved it had to be a wave. Twentieth-century physicists resolved the problem by redefining particles using the principles of quantum mechanics. They proposed that particles of light, now called photons, had some probability of existing in a given location—a probability that could be represented as a wave and even experience interference like one.
This newfound picture of the world helped make sense of results such as those of the double-slit experiment, which showed that particles like electrons and photons could behave as if they were waves.
But could a quantum worldview prove useful outside the lab?
At first, “quantum was usually seen as just a source of mystery and confusion and all sorts of strange paradoxes,” Milburn says.
But after World War II, people began figuring out how to use those paradoxes to get things done. Building on new quantum ideas about the behavior of electrons in metals and other materials, Bell Labs researchers William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain created the first transistors. They realized that sandwiching semiconductors together could create a device that would allow electrical current to flow in one direction, but not another. Other technologies, such as atomic clocks and the nuclear magnetic resonance used for MRI scans, were also products of the first quantum revolution.
Another important and, well, visible quantum invention was the laser.
In the 1950s, optical physicists knew that hitting certain kinds of atoms with a few photons at the right energy could lead them to emit more photons with the same energy and direction as the initial photons. This effect would cause a cascade of photons, creating a stable, straight beam of light unlike anything seen in nature. Today, lasers are ubiquitous, used in applications from laser pointers to barcode scanners to life-saving medical techniques.
All of these devices were made possible by studies of the quantum world. Both the laser and transistor rely on an understanding of quantized atomic energy levels. Milburn and Dowling suggest that the technologies of the first quantum revolution are unified by “the idea that matter particles sometimes behaved like waves, and that light waves sometimes acted like particles.”
For the first time, scientists were using their understanding of quantum mechanics to create new tools that could be used in the classical world.
The second quantum revolution
Many of these developments were described to the public without resorting to the word “quantum,” as this Bell Labs video about the laser attests.
One reason for the disconnect was that the first quantum revolution didn’t make full use of quantum mechanics. “The systems were too noisy. In a sense, the full richness of quantum mechanics wasn't really accessible,” says Ivan Deutsch, a quantum physicist at the University of New Mexico. “You can get by with a fairly classical picture.”
The stage for the second quantum revolution was set in the 1960s, when the North Irish physicist John Stewart Bell shook the foundations of quantum mechanics. Bell proposed that entangled particles were correlated in strange quantum ways and could not be explained with so-called “hidden variables.” Tests performed in the ’70s and ’80s confirmed that measuring one entangled particle really did seem to determine the state of the other, faster than any signal could travel between the two.
The other critical ingredient for the second quantum revolution was information theory, a blend of math and computer science developed by pioneers like Claude Shannon and Alan Turing. In 1994, combining new insight into the foundations of quantum mechanics with information theory led the mathematician Peter Shor to introduce a fast-factoring algorithm for a quantum computer, a computer whose bits exist in superposition and can be entangled.
Shor’s algorithm was designed to quickly divide large numbers into their prime factors. Using the algorithm, a quantum computer could solve the problem much more efficiently than a classical one. It was the clearest early demonstration of the worth of quantum computing.
“It really made the whole idea of quantum information, a new concept that those of us who had been working in related areas, instantly appreciated,” Deutsch says. “Shor’s algorithm suggested the possibilities new quantum tech could have over existing classical tech, galvanizing research across the board."
Shor’s algorithm is of particular interest in encryption because the difficulty of identifying the prime factors of large numbers is precisely what keeps data private online. To unlock encrypted information, a computer must know the prime factors of a large number associated with it. Use a large enough number, and the puzzle of guessing its prime factors can take a classical computer thousands of years. With Shor’s algorithm, the guessing game can take just moments.
Today’s quantum computers are not yet advanced enough to implement Shor’s algorithm. But as Deutsch points out, skeptics once doubted a quantum computer was even possible.
“Because there was a kind of trade-off,” he says. “The kind of exponential increase in computational power that might come from quantum superpositions would be counteracted exactly, by exponential sensitivity to noise.”
While inventions like the transistor required knowledge of quantum mechanics, the device itself wasn’t in a delicate quantum state, so it could be described semi-classically. Quantum computers, on the other hand, require delicate quantum connections.
What changed was Shor’s introduction of error-correcting codes. By combining concepts from classical information theory with quantum mechanics, Shor showed that, in theory, even the delicate state of a quantum computer could be preserved.
Beyond quantum computing, the second quantum revolution also relies on and encompasses new ways of using technology to manipulate matter at the quantum level.
Using lasers, researchers have learned to sap the energy of atoms and cool them. Like a soccer player dribbling a ball up field with a series of taps, lasers can cool atoms to billionths of a degree above absolute zero—far colder than conventional cooling techniques. In 1995, scientists used laser cooling to observe a long-predicted state of matter: the Bose-Einstein condensate.
Other quantum optical techniques have been developed to make ultra-precise measurements.
Classical interferometers, like the type used in the famous Michelson-Morley experiment that measured the speed of light in different directions to search for signs of a hypothetical aether, looked at the interference pattern of light. New matter-wave interferometers exploit the principle that everything—not just light—has a wavefunction. Measuring changes in the phase of atoms, which have far shorter wavelengths than light, could give unprecedented control to experiments that attempt to measure the smallest effects, like those of gravity.
With laboratories and companies around the world focused on advancements in quantum science and applications, the second quantum revolution has only begun. As Bardeen put it in his Nobel lecture, we may be at another “particularly opportune time ... to add another small step in the control of nature for the benefit of [hu]mankind.”


The roots of encryption go deep into human history. Encryption has been used for centuries to encode messages, usually to keep government secrets, but also to protect business or trade secrets such as the formula to make silk or pottery. Early encryption was fairly simplistic, largely relying on paper and pencil techniques like steganography, transposition and substitution. In the last century, encryption methods have advanced at a rapid clip, first by leveraging automation and the use of machinery and then by employing advanced mathematics and powerful computers.
While encryption today involves powerful computers, it wasn't always so complicated or ubiquitous.
Early Encryption Methods
It is said that in 700 B.C., the Spartan military used scytales to send secret messages during battle. The sender and the recipient each possessed a wooden rod of the same diameter and length. The sender would tightly wind a piece of parchment or leather around the stick and write a message. The unwound document would be sent to the recipient, who would wind it around his stick to decode the message. In its unwound state, the message was gibberish.
Julius Caesar created one of the simplest and most recognized encryption techniques: the Caesar cipher. It is a type of substitution cipher in which each letter in the plaintext is replaced by a letter some fixed number of positions down the alphabet. For example, with a left shift of 3, D would be replaced by A, E would become B, and so on. He used this method in his private correspondence at a time when many of his enemies could not read and other may have assumed the message was written in a foreign language. It is therefore assumed to have been reasonably secure in the first century B.C., but today a single-alphabet substitution cipher is easily broken and offers essentially zero security.
In the 15th century, Italy’s Leon Battista Alberti was the quintessential Renaissance man. Mostly known for being an artist, he also is credited as an author, architect, priest, poet, linguist, philosopher and cryptographer. In 1467, Alberti invented the first polyalphabetic substitution cipher. The Alberti Cipher consisted of two metal discs on the same axle, one inside the other, and involved mixed alphabets and variable rotations. It changed the course of encryption: unlike previous ciphers, the Alberti Cipher was impossible to break without knowledge of the method. This was because the frequency distribution of the letters was masked, and frequency analysis – the only known technique for attacking ciphers at that time – was no help.
During his tenure as George Washington’s Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson invented the Jefferson disk, or wheel cipher. The system used a set of wheels or disks, and the letters of the alphabet were inscribed on each wheel in random order. Turning them would scramble and unscramble words. Each disk is marked with a unique number, and the hole in the center of the disk allowed them to be stacked on an axle in any order desired. To encrypt the message, both sender and receiver had to arrange the disks in the same predefined order. By using 36 disks, Jefferson’s disk was considered unbreakable at the time.
Encryption and War
Jefferson’s disk was independently reinvented in the late 19th century by Commandant Etienne Bazeries, and named Bazeries cylinder. It was used as a U.S. Army field cipher after World War I. But perhaps the most famous war time encryption machine is Engima. Invented by Arthur Scherbius, Enigma was Germany's main cryptographic technology during World War II. The Enigma machine consisted of a basic keyboard, a display that would reveal the cipher text letter and a scrambling mechanism. Each plain text letter entered via the keyboard was transcribed to its corresponding cipher text letter. Enigma was eventually broken due in large part to the work of Marian Rejewski, a Polish statistician, mathematician and code breaker. Before Germany invaded Poland, Rejewski transferred all his research to the English and the French. The team at Bletchley Park, including Alan Turing, used Rejewski's work to build bombes, electromechanical machines that were designed specifically to break Enigma. This work is credited with being a crucial step to ending World War II.
Encryption in Today’s Computing World
Advances in computing led to even greater advances in encryption. In 1979, the National Bureau of Standards invented Data Encryption Standard (DES) using what was then state-of-the-art 56-bit encryption – even supercomputers of the day could not crack it. In general, the longer the key is, the more difficult it is to crack the code. This holds true because deciphering an encrypted message by brute force would require the attacker to try every possible key. DES was the standard for encryption for more than 20 years, until 1998, when the Electronic Frontier Foundation broke the DES key. It took 56 hours in 1998, and only 22 hours to accomplish the same feat in 1999.
As we can see, as technology advances, so does the quality of encryption. Once the internet began to see increased commercial transaction use, DES was finally replaced by the Advanced Encryption Standard, or AES, which was found through a competition open to the public and approved by NIST. This method is still in use today.
But perhaps one of the most notable advances in the study of cryptography since World War II is the introduction of the asymmetric key ciphers (also known as public key encryption). Whitfield Diffie and Martin Hellman were pioneers in the field of asymmetric cryptographic techniques. These are algorithms that use a pair of mathematically related keys, each of which decrypts the encryption performed using the other. By designating one key of the pair as private, and the other as public (often widely available), no secure channel is needed for key exchange. You can reuse the same key pair indefinitely – as long as the private key stays secret. Most importantly, in an asymmetric key system, the encryption and decryption keys are not identical, which means that, for the first time in history, two people could secure communications without any prior interaction – ideal for internet transactions.
Ronald L. Rivest, Adi Shamir and Leonard M. Adleman were inspired by Diffie and Hellman to create a practical public key system. The result was RSA, which was based on the difficulty of factoring large numbers, and is a common cryptograhic technique on the internet today.
Now that we have widespread use of encryption, what challenges do we face? To break encryption, the most basic method of attack is brute force. This is why keys are getting longer and longer – to create more possible solutions and increase the resources required to perform such large computations. There are more than a few informed experts who believe that quantum computing may bring forth the ability to break codes in the foreseeable future. Some of the industry’s brightest minds are working on quantum-resistant encryption so that we can continue to exchange sensitive information privately.
There are also concerns about cost and downtime when deploying encryption schemes. For enterprise-class encryption, you used to need to account and plan for downtime while tens of thousands of files or a large database was getting encrypted. But now you have the option of enterprise encryption without downtime, with Vormetric Live Data Transformation. In fact, a database of any size or any number of files can be used while undergoing encryption. We call it zero-downtime encryption, and it’s an industry game-changer.
And now as we have more and more services moving to the cloud, encrypting and securing data is even more critical. More sensitive data is residing in the cloud, and ensuring that data is secure can be a challenging task. However, there are new strategies for cloud data protection such as transparent and application-level encryption. Additional methods of encryption can involve tokenization and dynamic data masking. I would be remiss if I didn’t add key management to the mix, as well. Compliance mandates, data-residency requirements, government regulations and best practices require that enterprises protect and maintain encryption keys in accordance with specific frameworks and laws. Allowing organizations to “bring your own key,” also known as BYOK, enables maximum control and trust between the data owner and cloud provider, and is considered a best practice for internal and external compliance controls.
Later this month, Thales will release the results of our annual Global Encryption Study. While I won’t give away the findings, I can share that keeping pace with cloud adoption and escalating threats is a major pain point for organizations and business leaders. It is our focus and vision to make protecting your data as transparent and operationally “invisible” as possible. It is a tough mission, but a worthy one. I hope you’ll download that report when it becomes available, as I think you’ll find the results eye-opening.


StJohns Field is a massive helium reservoir and immense carbon storage basin located on 152,000 acres in Apache County, Arizona. Extensive third-party geological studies performed on the property indicate reserves of up to 33 billion cubic feet of helium in shallow, easily accessible reservoirs. Capable of producing one billion cubic feet of helium per year, it will be among the most prolific helium production sites in the world.
While most helium is extracted from natural gas deposits, the helium produced at St Johns is highly unusual in that it does not contain any hydrocarbons. The gas deposit is composed almost entirely of carbon dioxide, and as the helium is extracted in the production process, all of the excess CO2 will be reinjected into isolated geological formations and safely sequestered deep underground for millennia. As a result, the helium produced at St Johns is exceptionally clean and environmentally friendly, with a net zero carbon footprint.
Helium is the only element on the planet that is a completely non-renewable resource. It is both scarce and finite, with no commercially viable industrial process to replicate it. Helium is formed by the natural radioactive decay process of Uranium, and can be trapped underground if a halite or anhydrite cap exists above it. If helium is not trapped in this way, it escapes to the atmosphere and rises into space.
Helium is the coldest element, with a boiling point of only 4° Kelvin, and has unique superfluid properties. It has many applications as a high-tech coolant, and is a critical component for nearly all modern technology systems.
For example, liquid helium is used to cool the magnets in MRI systems, helping to optimize their function. It is also used to control the temperature of silicon in the semiconductor manufacturing process. Because Helium is inert and non-flammable, it is used in space and satellite systems as a purge gas in hydrogen systems, and as a pressurizing agent for ground and flight fluid systems. Both NASA and SpaceX are major consumers of helium.
Data centers use helium to encapsulate hard drives, which reduces friction and energy consumption - Google, Amazon, and Netflix are all major consumers. Quantum computing systems also use liquid helium in dilution refrigerators, providing temperatures as low as 2 mK.
Inaddition to its immense helium reserves, the geological characteristics of St Johns make it an ideal storage basin for carbon dioxide. With the ability to inject 22 million metric tons of CO2 per year and a total storage capacity of over 1 billion metric tons, St Johns is set to become one of the largest carbon capture sites in the world. Strategically located in the fast-growing American Southwest near several coal-fired power plants, Proton Green is well positioned to become a critical carbon sequestration hub in the region. The exceptionally well-suited geological storage structure, with its remote location, pipeline infrastructure, right of way, and Class VI storage permits (once granted) will be significant barriers to entry for competitors.
Hydrogen is steadily emerging as one of the most effective fossil fuel replacements and could become a lucrative opportunity for Proton Green as the global movement toward decarbonization and a net zero economy continues. Our processing plants are capable of producing large volumes of industrial-grade hydrogen while simultaneously sequestering the excess CO2 in underground storage basins, thereby qualifying as blue hydrogen. The hydrogen we produce can then be sold into the California markets and will be eligible for Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) credits as we help drive the transition toward a sustainable fuel and energy source.
Proton Green will partner with government agencies, NGOs, research institutions, and startup companies to create a cutting-edge incubator and innovation center for emerging carbon-neutral technologies and processes like blue hydrogen, CO2-enhanced geothermal energy, biomass energy, and carbon fiber materials. The research center will be located in a designated Opportunity Zone in the extreme southwest corner of the property, and Proton Green will provide CO2 to support research and development activities. We are currently pursuing an opportunity to develop a bioenergy plant that will convert forest-wood waste into biofuel.
A seasoned independent oil and gas producer since 1982, Mr. Looper has extensive experience drilling and operating wells in Colorado, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas and Wyoming. He also has project management in Botswana, Canada, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Since 1993, Mr. Looper has been focused on the development of large resource plays in West Texas at Riata Energy, Inc. and most recently in the Barnett Shale trend, where his capital providers achieved>100% rates of return. Mr. Looper is an alumni of West Texas State University, T. Boone Pickens School of Business and participated in the Harvard Business School, Executive Management Program 2003-2007.
Mr. Coates is a highly experienced oil and gas professional with a career emphasis on large-scale, unconventional resource development. He is currently involved in Helium development, carbon capture, oil and gas, and geothermal projects. His educational background in geology, geochemistry and engineering led to an initial career with Advanced Resources International, a domestic and international technical consulting firm at the forefront of unconventional resource development and Carbon Capture technology. He subsequently joined MCN Corp (now DTE Energy) in a senior management role to successfully develop a multi TCF natural gas reserve base in the US. He also co-founded an E&P company Patrick Energy with the funding of a family office that has led to a series of privately funded ($200MM capital) E&P companies built and sold over the past twenty years.
Ms. Fazio is an accomplished finance executive with broad functional expertise building and transforming finance functions. She has led diverse teams across multiple countries in accounting, finance, treasury, tax, risk management and investor relations. Her experience varies across industries with prior roles at Airswift, Frank’s International, Axon, and ThermoFisher Scientific. Ms. Fazio graduated from Bentley University in Waltham, MA.


Quantum mechanics is the set of principles used to explain the behaviour of particles at the atomic and subatomic scale. It all began around late 1800s and early 1900s, when scientist realized from a series of experimental observations that the behaviour of atoms didn’t agree with the rules of classical mechanics, where everyday objects exist in a specific place at a specific time. This changed the traditional concept of an atom with a nucleus surrounded by electrons, to orbitals that represent the probability of the electrons being in a given range at any given time. Electrons can jump from one orbital to another as they gain or lose energy, but they cannot be found between orbitals. From this idea, and over many decades, the rules of quantum mechanics were unveiled allowing scientists to build devices that followed those rules. This led to the first quantum revolution with the invention of the transistor, the laser, and the atomic clock that gave us computers, optical fibre communications and the global positioning system, respectively.
The reason why is getting again so much attention is because we are in the early stages of a second quantum revolution with scientists now being able to control individual atoms, electrons and photons. This is allowing our scientific community to build extremely fast quantum computers, interception-proof quantum communication and hyper-sensitive quantum measurement methods. All harnessed by strong technological companies across the world that are now in a frenetic race to redefine the limits of our technology and, with it, the very fabric of our everyday lives.
Classical computers have billions of transistors that turn on or off to represent a value that is a 0 or a 1. Hence, in classical computing we talk about binary digit or bits. In contrast, quantum computers process data using quantum bits or qubits that, unlike classical bits, can exist in simultaneous states or superposition at the exact same point of time thanks to the laws of quantum mechanics. This allows each qubit to be 1, or 0, or both states simultaneously.
The magic of quantum computers happens when these qubits are entangled. Entanglement is a type of correlation that ties qubits together so the state of one qubit is tied to another. Hence, by leveraging both superposition and entanglement, quantum computers can speed up computation and do things that classical computers can’t do.
Entangled qubits can be created in many different ways for example with superconductors electronic circuits, by trapping ionized atoms or by squeezing particles of light (photons). Each technology is currently trying to preserve the quantum effects for as long as possible as they scale-up in the number of qubits from the current hundreds to the targeted Million that will forever redefine the boundaries of computing technology.
Post-quantum cryptography (also known as quantum-proof, quantum-safe or quantum-resistant) refers to cryptographic algorithms that are thought to be secure against the attack of quantum computers in the future. These algorithms are called post-quantum because the security of most standard algorithms today relies on solving very difficult mathematical problems, sufficient for defending against modern computers but unable to resist the attack of a quantum computer once they reach certain computational power in number of Qubits.
Quantum cryptography, on the other hand, also known as Quantum Key Distribution (QKD), describes he use of quantum effects to enable unconditionally secure key distribution between two legitimate users, guaranteed by the fundamental laws of quantum physics.
Although some people tend to think that these two technologies are exclusive, they are in fact meant to be allies on securing future communications.
Quantum Key Distribution is a method for two parties, in cryptography referred as Alice and Bob, to securely establish a shared key to encode messages through optical fibre or space. To create the key, first Alice encrypts random bits into quantum signals (extremely weak photons) and transmits them through the channel. Bob measures the state of the arriving photons and obtains data that is partially correlated to the data encoded by Alice. These data can be used to distil a secret key by means of error correction and privacy amplification.
When a hacker tries to look at the information encoded into the quantum photons sent by Alice, he or she will irreversibly change their properties because quantum states cannot be cloned or copied. This means that Bob receives quantum signals that are not correlated to Alice’s as they should be, therefore letting them know that someone has tried to intercept the message. Alice and Bob discard this key that has been compromised and a new one following the same process is generated until it is guaranteed that is free from attacks.
In Discrete Variable QKD (DV-QKD) the emitter (Alice) prepares and sends to a receiver (Bob) quantum signals which consist of single photons with encoded random data. The encoding is done following a specific QKD protocol by using a discrete-valued degree of freedom of the photons such as polarization, time-bin or linear momentum. In the receiver, Bob measures the state of the arriving photons using single-photo detectors to distil a secret key.
In Continuous Variable QKD (CV-QKD), the quantum signals typically consist of coherent states of light with information encoded in the quadrature of electromagnetic fields. Instead of single photon detectors, CV-QKD uses coherent homodyne or heterodyne detection (known in telecommunication phase-diversity homodyne detection) to retrieve the quadrature value of the signal and thus distil a secret key.
Standardization and certification of QKD technology is vital to enable market penetration, ensure equipment interoperability and a strong supply chain. For that, the standards are quite comprehensive as they define frameworks that consider all aspects of the technology as well as the implementation into a complete system, performance, best operational practices, or security specifications to name some.
All the key standard organizations across the world (national, European, and world wide) already began years ago to write their specifications on QKD systems, which is an indicator of both increased maturity and a strong interest in the application and commercialization of QKD technology.
For further information on QKD standardization, you can read the comprehensive analysis ran by OpenQKD here.
Rather than competing, both mathematical and post-quantum cryptographies are complementary to quantum cryptography. This is emerging when talking to encryption and telecom providers and supported by the fact that European Commission plans to deploy EuroQCI. The idea is to continuously monitor the evolution of all these technologies and put together a roadmap for leveraging both physical against mathematical complexity security-based protocols.
That is what we are working on. There are numerous projects in Europe and private companies investing and researching on making the technology affordable by involving production experts and the know-how of both end user companies and network infrastructure owners.
European-made technology is desired/preferred for these kinds of systems to ensure European sovereignty. For that reason the European Union itself through many fund programs, as well as industry consortiums such as the European Quantum Industry Consortium (QuIC), are stimulating potential makers and suppliers to develop and produce all key components in Europe over the next years.