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Quantum information

Circuits that process with magic

Nature volume 460, pages 187–188 (2009)Cite this article

Practical quantum computation will require a scalable, robust system to generate and process information with precise control. This is now possible using a superconducting circuit and a little quantum magic.

Have you ever wondered what quantum computers will really look like? Will they be warehouses full of vacuum chambers, lasers and optics tables? What will be doing the computing? Thus far, simple quantum algorithms have been performed with small numbers of molecules1, cold ions2 or photons3 — systems that were designed by nature but that can be cleverly controlled. Scaling these systems up to a workable quantum computer will require a little error correction and a lot of hard work.

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Figure 1: A blackjack-style card game analogue for a two-qubit quantum processor.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Raymond W. Simmonds is at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder, Colorado 80305, USA. raymond.simmonds@nist.gov,

    Raymond W. Simmonds

  2. Frederick W. Strauch is in the Department of Physics, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts 01267, USA. frederick.w.strauch@williams.edu,

    Frederick W. Strauch

Authors
  1. Raymond W. Simmonds
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  2. Frederick W. Strauch
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Simmonds, R., Strauch, F. Circuits that process with magic. Nature 460, 187–188 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/460187a

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