ACADEMIA

A scientific announcement made in Australia will bring the dream of building ultra-powerful quantum computers a giant step closer. Professor Peter Zoller - a pioneer of quantum computing - will tell the Sir Mark Oliphant Conference on Quantum Nanoscience in Noosa (Qld) that polar molecules may help overcome one of the major obstacles to building a quantum computing. "Using molecules of super-cold gas to create a stable quantum memory associated with some of the solid-state quantum processes, we can build an interface. "It's like a slow hard disc with a very good memory," he says. "It has exactly the elements which were missing for the development of quantum computing." Another major breakthrough has been to combine the worlds of quantum optics, atomic physics and solid state physics. This opens up fantastic new possibilities, Prof. Zoller says. "This makes possible long-distance quantum communication, quantum cryptography, even teleporting quantum states over a large distance. We have developed an interface connecting the classical and quantum worlds." Prof Zoller says that incorporating quantum optics became feasible after other international researchers managed to combine elements of solid state physics with atomic physics. "It is possible to devise systems with good memories using atomic physics," says Professor Zoller. "On the other hand, solid state physics researchers have used 'charged qubits' to store large quantities of information - but in a fundamentally unstable system suffering from 'decoherence'. "By combining the two you get a powerful, reliable memory for a new generation of computer." The addition of quantum optics supplies the 'missing link' for developing a quantum computer by enabling long-distance communication. "Quantum optics allows us to develop long-distance quantum communication," he says. "We have developed a means of converting microwave photons which are used in solid-state quantum computing to optical photons. Polar molecules 'talk' to microwave radiation, and so we can connect the world of solid-state quantum computing with its charged qubits, to the world of optics." Professor Zoller's development of quantum information processing using trapped ions has been repeated in laboratories around the world. It is regarded as the most successful experimental application in quantum computing to date. Professor Zoller is one of the Scientific Directors of the Austrian Acadamy of Sciences Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Sciences. He was for several years Professor at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astropyhics in Boulder, Colorado, before returning to his native Innsbruck in Austria. His research is carried out in collaboration with colleagues at Yale and Harvard Universities. Professor Zoller is speaking on the topic Quantum information processing with polar molecules at 0900 Qld time on Thursday.