{"id":14294,"date":"2021-08-24T14:26:18","date_gmt":"2021-08-24T13:26:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=14294"},"modified":"2024-09-04T20:12:41","modified_gmt":"2024-09-04T19:12:41","slug":"photonics-based-applications-for-quantum-computing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/photonics-based-applications-for-quantum-computing\/14294\/","title":{"rendered":"Photonics-based approach could lead to real-world applications for quantum computing"},"content":{"rendered":"
Both scientists and investors are interested in the lucrative opportunities offered by quantum computing, such as its potential applications for complex problem-solving. The quantum computing market is, therefore, set to reach $65bn by 2030.<\/p>\n
One of the most promising future applications for quantum computing is its potential for drug discovery. In order to fully comprehend drug interactions, a pharmaceutical company may wish to simulate the interaction between two molecules.<\/p>\n
Currently, the difficulty posed by this is that every molecule is formed of hundreds of atoms and researchers would need to model every way in which the atoms could array themselves when their respective molecules are introduced. The number of possible configurations is staggering \u2014 more than the number of atoms in the Universe. Therefore, only a quantum computer can represent, let alone solve, such an extensive, dynamic data problem.<\/p>\n
The ability to apply quantum computing to such societal uses is, unfortunately, decades away, but scientists in universities and private industry across the globe are working on different dimensions of the technology.<\/p>\n
A group of researchers led by Xu Yi, who is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science, has found a niche in the physics and applications of photonic devices, which distinguish and shape light for a variety of uses such as communications and computing. The team has developed a scalable quantum computing platform, which significantly decreases the quantity of devices necessary to achieve quantum speed on a photonic chip the size of a penny.<\/p>\n
This research has been supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation\u2019s Engineering Quantum Integrated Platforms for Quantum Communication, and the group\u2019s findings have recently been published<\/a> in Nature Communications. <\/em><\/p>\n Olivier Pfister, professor of quantum optics and quantum information at UVA, and Hansuek Lee, assistant professor at the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, contributed to the success of the research.<\/p>\n Quantum computers offer a completely novel method of information processing; they process information in parallel, meaning they don\u2019t have to wait for one sequence of information to be processed before they can compute more. Their unit of information is called a qubit, a hybrid that can be one and zero at the same time. A quantum mode, or qumode, spans the full spectrum of variables between one and zero.<\/p>\n Scientists are working on various methods to effectively generate the immense amount of qumodes required to attain quantum speeds. Yi\u2019s photonics-based method is appealing as a field of light is also full spectrum; each light wave in the spectrum has the capability to become a quantum unit. Yi hypothesised that by entangling fields of light, the light would reach a quantum state.<\/p>\n