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Harvard scientists have developed a groundbreaking photon router that connects optical signals to superconducting microwave qubits, the building blocks of many quantum computers. This innovation could overcome one of quantum computing’s biggest hurdles: getting different quantum systems to “talk”

A revolutionary timekeeping breakthrough could be on the horizon as scientists explore the thorium-229 nuclear optical clock, an innovation that may surpass today’s atomic clocks.

By manipulating nuclear quantum states with lasers, researchers are pushing the boundaries of precision and stability in time measurement. Though the journey has spanned decades and major technical hurdles remain, recent experimental milestones have brought this futuristic clock closer to reality. If successful, it could reshape our understanding of time and the universe itself.

Pushing the Limits of Timekeeping.

A study, “Enhanced Majorana stability in a three-site Kitaev chain,” published in Nature Nanotechnology demonstrates significantly enhanced stability of Majorana zero modes (MZMs) in engineered quantum systems.

This research, conducted by a team from the University of Oxford, Delft University of Technology, Eindhoven University of Technology, and Quantum Machines, represents a major step towards fault-tolerant quantum computing.

Majorana zero modes (MZMs) are exotic quasiparticles that are theoretically immune to environmental disturbances that cause decoherence in conventional qubits. This inherent makes them promising candidates for building robust quantum computers. However, achieving sufficiently stable MZMs has been a persistent challenge due to imperfections in traditional materials.

A recent study published in Physical Review Letters

<em> Physical Review Letters (PRL)</em> is a prestigious peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Physical Society. Launched in 1958, it is renowned for its swift publication of short reports on significant fundamental research in all fields of physics. PRL serves as a venue for researchers to quickly share groundbreaking and innovative findings that can potentially shift or enhance understanding in areas such as particle physics, quantum mechanics, relativity, and condensed matter physics. The journal is highly regarded in the scientific community for its rigorous peer review process and its focus on high-impact papers that often provide foundational insights within the field of physics.

Applied physicists at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have created a photon router that could plug into quantum networks to create robust optical interfaces for noise-sensitive microwave quantum computers.

The breakthrough is a crucial step toward someday realizing modular, distributed quantum computing networks that leverage existing telecommunications infrastructure. Comprising millions of miles of optical fiber, today’s fiber-optic networks send information between computing clusters as pulses of light, or photons, all around the world in the blink of an eye.

Led by Marko Lončar, the Tiantsai Lin Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics at SEAS, the team has created a microwave-optical quantum transducer, a device designed for quantum processing systems that use superconducting microwave qubits as their smallest units of operation (analogous to the 1s and 0s of classical bits).