January 6, 2012
UCSB Quantum Computing Research Among Top 10 Physics Breakthroughs of 2011
Physics World revealed its Top 10 breakthrough stories in physics for 2011, and quantum computing research at UCSB made the list.
Research by UC Santa Barbara postdoctoral fellow Matteo Mariantoni, and professors Andrew Cleland and John Martinis placed #9 among the Top 10 breakthroughs, for "being the first to implement a quantum version of the "Von Neumann" architecture found in PCs."
"Based on superconducting circuits and integrated on a single chip, the new device has been used to perform two important quantum-computing algorithms. Its development moves us closer to the creation of practical quantum computers that solve real-life problems," writes Hamish Johnston, editor of physicsworld.com.
Mariantoni discusses their breakthrough in depth on the blog 2Physics.com . He writes:
"One of the critical challenges of quantum computing is to assemble together in a single machine all the hardware components needed for a quantum computer and to program these components using quantum codes, thus allowing us to implement a quantum-mechanical computational architecture. In particular, such an architecture should be scalable and immune from computational errors. This would represent a so-called scalable fault-tolerant quantum-mechanical architecture."
In our Fall 2011 issue of Convergence magazine, we highlight the amazing efforts that Martinis, Cleland, Mariantoni and others have invested in quantum computing research at UCSB in the article "Quantum Leap."
UCSB Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation
Microsoft Station Q at UCSB