First truly quantum router demoed by Chinese researchers
But their router is a proof-of-principle device rather than something capable of forming the basis of a future quantum internet.
Qubits and Pieces
News from the frontline of the weird and wonderful world of quantum computing. From the theoretical musings of solid state physicists to breakthroughs you might actually see in a data centre in your lifetime, we'll be keeping an eye on stuff that matters in materials science, including graphene, condensed matter, diamonds and so on. And last, but by no mean least, we'll be tracking the spin on spintronics. Just don't mention room temperature.
Lucy Sherriff
Lucy Sherriff is a journalist, science geek and general liker of all things techie and clever. In a previous life she put her physics degree to moderately good use by writing about science for that other tech website, The Register. After a bit of a break, it seemed like a good time to start blogging about weird quantum stuff for ZDNet. And so here we are.
Latest Posts
Silicon puts on a nickel coat to pass as graphene
Researchers' creation of a silicon-based field-effect transistor that mimics the electrical properties of graphene shows the battle for the future of electronics is still on.
Chip fab techniques help build living neural circuits
Lithographic printing techniques, familiar from the microprocessor industry, may lay the groundwork for spinal cord repair
Graphene gives renewable fuel research a boost
Is there anything Graphene can't do? The wonder material has added another string to its bow, as researchers have found it can aid artificial photosynthesis, which could help with the creation of renewable fuels
The Higgs boson: Why should we care?
The scientific community is cock-a-hoop over CERN's discovery of a something that looks like the Higgs boson. But why? And what does it help us understand?
Silicene: The next wonder material emerges from the shadows
Silicene could revolutionise electronics and even be more exciting than graphene - although reseachers will have to figure out exactly what it is, first.
Lighting up spintronics with re-writeable circuits
Researchers at the University of California Berkeley (UCB) and the City College of New York (CCNY) have developed a way of controlling the spin of a nucleus that could one day allow us to make rewritable spintronics circuits with light.According to Professor Jeremy Reimer, UCB professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering and the study co-author, the major drawback of existing chips is their permanence: "Once the chip is printed, it can only be used one way," he said.
Graphene gives boost to Edison's Nickel-Iron battery
Graphene has been used to revive a rechargeable battery technology invented by Thomas Edison (yes, that Thomas Edison) more than 100 years ago in a collision of technologies that could prove very fruitful.Edison’s idea was that the batteries would power electric vehicles, but the largely technology fell out of use in the 1970s, because although it is very durable, the charge and discharge times are very slow.
Catching light in a graphene net
An international team of physicists led by US researcher Dmitri Basov, of the University of California, demonstrated that light can be caught and controlled within the two dimensional lattice of wonder-material graphene.Theory has suggested that long wavelength – infrared – photons could be caught and moved through graphene at much less than the velocity of light.
Florida scientists boost graphene's solar ambitions
Researchers in Florida have developed a doped form of graphene that makes graphene solar cells much more efficient. In an article in NanoLetters they report a power efficiency of 9 per cent, compared to 1.