(ScienceDaily) Researchers at Trinity College Dublin have created an innovative new device that will emit single particles of light, or photons, from quantum dots that are the key to practical quantum computers, quantum communications, and other quantum devices.
The promise of quantum computers leverages the properties of quantum bits — “qubits” — to execute computations. Current computers process and store information in bits of either 0s or 1s whereas qubits can be 0 and 1 simultaneously. That means quantum computers will have much greater computational powers over and above classical computers.
Scientists are exploring different options and designs to make quantum computing a viable reality. One proposed idea utilises photonic systems, making use of quantum properties of light at the nanoscale, as qubits. The Trinity team explores such a system.
Their system utilises single photons of light emitted in a controlled fashion in time and space from quantum emitters. For applications such as quantum computing, it is necessary to control emissions from these emitters and to produce quantum entanglement of emission from pairs of these dots.