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Category: quantum physics – Page 12

Light rewrites magnetic memory in one pulse, opening path to lower-power AI chips

As artificial intelligence, cloud computing and digital services continue to expand, the world is facing a growing need for faster and more energy-efficient ways to store and process information. A team led by the National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology (QST) has developed a new magnetic memory material that can be rewritten using laser light instead of electric current, a step that could help reduce power consumption in data centers and support future high-speed information systems.

The study is published in Applied Physics Letters.

The new material allows magnetic information to be switched by a single ultrashort laser pulse. Because light can reverse magnetic states much faster than electric current, the approach could deliver switching speeds roughly 1,000 times higher than those of conventional electrically driven magnetic memory while also reducing heat generation and energy loss.

AI helps reveal large-scale quantum effects hidden in stacked atomic sheets

Quantum materials are a class of exotic materials with special properties that are governed by quantum mechanics rather than classical physics. Those properties—like superconductivity, entanglement and unusual forms of magnetism—often originate in the tiny repeating patterns of atoms inside crystals, but through clever engineering, they can be observed and controlled at a more human scale. Quantum materials are helping to power the quickly growing field of quantum computing and could find their way into future generations of energy-efficient electronics.

Designing new materials from the atomic scale up, however, requires intense modeling and simulation. Some materials may appear ordinary when viewed as small clusters of atoms, yet reveal new and useful properties when their atomic building blocks repeat and interact over larger distances. Researchers must be able to accurately predict behaviors at large scales in order to find materials with practical applications—otherwise, designing new materials is a slow and costly trial-and-error process.

In the past 50 years, supercomputers have helped materials scientists solve some of those thorny prediction problems, but two recent studies from the University of Washington demonstrate how newer computing techniques can help researchers sniff out promising quantum materials to pursue.

Majorana modes withstand disorder in atomic chains, boosting fault-tolerant quantum computing

Quantum computers—systems that process information and perform computations by leveraging the principles of quantum mechanics—could solve some tasks faster and more effectively than classical computers. While some studies have demonstrated the advantages of these computers for specific tasks, ensuring their reliable operation in real-world settings has proved challenging.

This is partly because quantum information units, or qubits, are known to be highly sensitive to environmental disturbances, such as fluctuations in temperature, electromagnetic fluctuations and magnetic fields. These environmental disturbances, collectively referred to as “noise,” can alter the qubit’s delicate quantum states, leading to computational errors.

In recent years, quantum physicists and engineers have proposed various strategies that could protect qubits from environmental disturbances and reduce quantum computing errors. One proposed solution is to rely on Majorana modes.

Quantum witness technique reveals spinons in quantum spin liquid candidate

Physicists at University College Cork have developed a new approach in the search for a quantum spin liquid, a long-sought state of quantum matter resembling a magnetic liquid whose quantum properties mean it never freezes. The work is a key step in the search for quantum silicon, a mineral that could be used to create quantum computers, just as silicon is used in traditional computers. The resulting paper appears in Nature Physics.

Lead author Prof. Seamus Davis said, “By introducing the quantum witness technique we provide a completely new perspective on the physics of quantum spin liquids and access their internal quantum excitations or ‘spinons’ directly for the first time at UCC.”

As liquids cool, they freeze into solids as their atoms cease to move. But some liquids, such as helium, never freeze. Predominant quantum effects mean they flow as superfluids even at absolute zero (the coldest possible temperature).

This Quantum Detector Boosts Terahertz Sensitivity by 20 Times

The researchers believe the technology could eventually operate at temperatures higher than those required by many competing detector designs. Similar PETS devices have already demonstrated performance at temperatures reachable using compact cryocoolers rather than liquid helium.

That capability could help fill the gap between highly sensitive cryogenic detectors and lower-sensitivity room-temperature technologies, potentially expanding the range of real-world applications.

The study marks the first demonstration of a quantum metasurface photodetector based on a two-dimensional electron system. By combining efficient light collection with a highly sensitive quantum detection mechanism, the work represents a significant step toward overcoming long-standing challenges in terahertz technology.

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Attosecond interferometry meets quantum optics

Experimental attosecond science is built around the ability to generate and control light flashes lasting billionths of a billionth of a second. Such extreme pulses can be created through high harmonic generation (HHG), where an intense laser field drives electrons out of atoms or solids and then forces them back, releasing bursts of extreme ultraviolet radiation. Techniques like this have transformed our ability to observe electron motion on its natural timescale.

To extract information from such ultrafast processes, physicists often rely on attosecond interferometry. By combining a strong laser field with a weaker second colour, different electron trajectories are made to interfere, imprinting timing and phase information onto the emitted harmonics. Over recent years, these schemes have become standard tools for attosecond metrology and spectroscopy.

New buried-growth process enables 2D arrays of position- and orientation-controlled diamond qubits

Researchers at Kanazawa University, in collaboration with Diamond and Carbon Applications (Germany), have developed a buried-growth process for nitrogen–vacancy (NV) centers in diamond using microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition (MPCVD). By employing nitrogen-radical selective etching, which simultaneously enhances metal-mask durability through nitridation, the team enabled a continuous etching–growth sequence within a single MPCVD process.

The work is published in the journal Carbon.

Optical measurements confirmed highly aligned NV centers selectively buried in predefined regions. This integrated approach provides a stable and scalable platform for orientation-controlled diamond qubits and future room-temperature quantum technologies.

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