New superconducting materials needed to further develop future computers have been discovered.

Last Update Time: 2019-05-08 14:32:22

Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) hope to further develop future computers. This requires superconducting materials. This material has now been discovered.

Classic computers only perform one calculation step after another. Quantum computers, on the other hand, work very fast and can perform multiple computational steps simultaneously. Information carriers are so-called "qubits". They not only have the binary values "1" and "0" of the classic computer architecture, but also have values between them. This is achieved by a quantum mechanical superposition of states called superposition principles. However, it is difficult to maintain this state. Now, KIT researchers have used a quantum circuit material that retains this value longer than previously used materials: granular aluminum, or grAl for short.

Granular aluminum as a superconductor

Granular aluminum is a superconductor. These materials have no electrical resistance at very low temperatures and therefore can conduct electricity without loss. With new materials, scientists are committed to quantum computing. This is a major challenge so far. Superconducting materials are critical to maintaining the quantum state of the drill bit and joining them together. Companies such as IBM, Intel or Microsoft are already working to expand the scale of superconducting quantum processors.

High coherence time

The difficulty in maintaining the quantum state lies in the interaction with the environment, which may lead to the decline of the coherent state. The more qubits you use, the more difficult it is to maintain consistency. Granular aluminum acts as a superconductor and is known by researchers as Fluxonium qubits with a coherence time of 30 μs. During this time, more than one thousand logical operations can be performed. The researchers explained that this may increase the performance limits of previous quantum computers.

This article is from Allicdata Electronics Limited.

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