The material at the heart of the digital revolution, silicon, is now a leading candidate for building large-scale quantum computers. This strategy leverages the most mature and powerful manufacturing technology on Earth to control the fundamental quantum property of an electron: its spin. Recent breakthroughs in silicon-based spin qubits have demonstrated gate fidelities that meet […]
Chemistry • DIPC Computational and Theoretical Chemistry • Quantum chemistry
Chemical bonds are among the most familiar ideas in science. They explain why hydrogen and oxygen combine to form water, why carbon atoms build long chains in organic molecules, and why every substance has the shape and properties it does. Yet, despite their central role in chemistry, bonds are not directly observable objects. They are […]
Few concepts in physics are as familiar, yet as enigmatic, as time. In Einstein’s theory of relativity, time is not absolute: its passage depends on motion and gravity. But when combined with quantum physics, this relativistic form of time becomes even more counterintuitive. Testing quantum superpositions of time According to quantum theory, the flow of […]
In order to build the computers and devices of tomorrow, we have to understand how they use energy today. That’s harder than it sounds. Memory storage, information processing, and energy use in these technologies involve constant energy flow—systems never settle into thermodynamic balance. To complicate things further, one of the most precise ways to study […]
A new study has identified a surprising source of entropy in quantum timekeeping—the act of measurement itself. The researchers demonstrate that the energy cost of “reading” a quantum clock far outweighs the cost of running it, with implications for the design of future quantum technologies. Clocks, whether pendulums or atomic oscillators, rely on irreversible processes […]
Author: Samuel Lellouch, Assistant Professor in Digital Twinning, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Birmingham A US military space-plane, the X-37B orbital test vehicle, is due to embark on its eighth flight into space on August 21 2025. Much of what the X-37B does in space is secret. But it serves partly as a […]
Chemistry • Condensed matter • DIPC Computer Science • DIPC Electronic Properties • Quantum chemistry
Quantum chemistry is a field that dives into the behaviour of atoms and molecules at their most fundamental level, using the principles of quantum mechanics to understand how electrons interact within these systems. For researchers, one of the biggest challenges is studying systems where electrons are strongly correlated—meaning their movements are highly interdependent, like dancers […]
In a leap forward for quantum computing, a Microsoft team led by UC Santa Barbara physicists on Wednesday unveiled an eight-qubit topological quantum processor, the first of its kind. The chip, built as a proof-of-concept for the scientists’ design, opens the door to the development of the long-awaited topological quantum computer. “We’ve got a bunch […]
A new review article stresses out the necessity of the integration of new generation post-quantum cryptography protocols to industrial and critical infrastructures environments. The exponential development of communication technologies in the late 20th century and, specially, in the early 21 st century has resulted in a contemporary society that exists in a hyperconnected world. In […]
Collisions of high energy particles produce “jets” – quarks, antiquarks, or gluons moving through the quantum vacuum. Due to the confinement property of strong interactions, quarks are never directly detected but instead fragment into many secondary particles. Scientists have long expected that as jets propagate through the confining quantum vacuum, they will modify that vacuum […]