Quantum electronics sounds intimidating. The moment you hear the term, you might imagine rooms full of white-coated physicists huddled over incomprehensible equations. But quantum electronics is not as complicated as it may seem, and this is what makes the science so fascinating.
The basis of quantum electronics is nothing more than discovering how to utilize all of the wonderfully weird properties of the smallest particles in our universe and charge them to perform useful functions for mankind. To give you a clearer understanding of this concept, here’s scalable quantum electronics for dummies.
What Exactly Is Quantum Electronics?
Everything around you—your phone, your coffee mug, the air you breathe—is made of atoms and the even smaller particles within them. At this atomic scale, particles behave in ways that seem to defy common sense.
They can be in more than one place at the same time, and can pass through barriers or be many miles apart from each other because of "entanglement." The strange properties of atoms and particles that are part of our everyday lives can be used to create technology that is unlike anything we have seen before. This field of study is called quantum electronics.
Conventional electronics usually rely upon electromagnetism in an extremely predictable manner and in circuits that are easy to work with. In contrast, when using quantum electronics, engineers will embrace the strangeness of how atoms and particles work under certain conditions.
All this in efforts to create calculators, storage devices and processing units that will change how we think about computing, and what makes a computer a computer.
The Promise of Scaling Up
Scientists and engineers have known about quantum effects for nearly a century. So what's the real challenge? It's not discovering quantum mechanics, but rather, making it practical. Specifically, it's figuring out how to scale it. How do you take quantum effects that work with just a few particles and expand them to thousands, then millions?
The answer to this scaling problem is found in the use of superconductors. These are special materials that enable currents to flow through them without resistance and/or energy loss when cooled to very low temperatures.
Superconductors act as ideal roadways for currents to flow through (with no friction or degradation of the current), thus the importance of using them in a quantum system. That’s because the quantum system is very sensitive and susceptible to damage by very minor disturbances.
The use of superconductive circuits in building quantum systems will enable engineers to create Quantum Systems that are both for a better level of stability as well as for a larger level of scalability in regards to quantum computing (moving from 5-10 qubits to creating hundreds/thousands of qubits).
This will be the key to moving away from small, laboratory experiments and creating quantum systems that are large enough to actually be used to solve real-world problems.
How It All Works Together
Precise control is how to create a scalable quantum device. Just like conducting an orchestra is impossible if one make the slightest error on one of the instruments, working with quantum devices requires managing each quantum bit perfectly to avoid total failure of the system.
This is where the Quantum Computing Control System becomes integral. This control system operates similarly to a conductor's baton in that it directs each quantum bit on what to do, reads the status of all the quantum bits and keeps all the quantum bits in perfect timing.
Without precise control over these quantum bits, the quantum computer will not produce useful computations but instead result in chaos.
The challenge for designing and developing this level of control is that it operates under extreme conditions. Specifically, Quantum Computing Control Systems operate at temperatures that are near absolute zero (which is so cold that most electronic devices would become frozen). Additionally, the quantum bits receive and respond to microwave pulses at very precisely timed intervals.
But perhaps the most challenging part is measuring the state of the quantum bits, while at the same time trying to create very specific quantum bit states. This is because measuring quantum states will destroy the states being measured.
Why This Matters for the Future
Why do scientists spend time and money developing quantum electronics? Think about what quantum computers could do.
Classical computers work with yeses or nos, and ones or zeros to perform an operation, while quantum computers can perform multiple operations at the same time. Therefore, they can potentially solve problems in areas where classical computers are estimated to take millions of years to solve.
Several areas may see significant benefits from quantum computing, such as drug development, AI optimization, financial estimation and modeling, and materials science. All these areas are being actively pursued.
As opposed to waiting 50 years for this technology to arrive, companies and research organizations are actively creating practical quantum systems around the world today. The missing element to achieving these benefits in the real world is scalability.
Conclusion
Scientists are still in the early stages. But that isn’t to say that quantum electronics is some distant theoretical concept. In fact, it's becoming tangible technology that's reshaping what computers can do.
And the best part is, you don’t have to have a physics degree to appreciate how important quantum electronics are. You just have to see that by embracing the strange and beautiful things around us, we sometimes find our greatest scientific accomplishments.
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