Ions are arguably the leading candidate for use as qubits in a quantum computer.
The newly-built quantum computer consists of seven qubits, each corresponding to one nucleus in a large molecule.
Physicists believe that the quantum states of the electrons can be used as quantum bits - or qubits - for encoding data in a superfast quantum computer.
When two Josephson junctions are connected through a standard capacitor, the application of a small a.c. voltage pulse to the first qubit can cause the two qubits to oscillate between two combined states.
Quantum computers have the potential to be blazingly fast because a string of quantum bits, or qubits, that store the ones and zeros of computer information can represent all the numbers possible within that string at once.
The resolution of this addressing technique is about two thousandths of a millimetre - over a length of one millimetre, therefore, several hundred qubits could be stored.
The atoms can act as quantum bits, or qubits, with internal sub-states functioning as the ubiquitous and 1s of computing.
The new work shows how a well-specified bath affects the qubits in a crystal which behaves as a very primitive quantum computer.
Quantum teleportation is the transferring of tiny units of computer information, called quantum bits or qubits, from one location to another.
The ability to couple qubits to photons, demonstrated by the Yale group, could allow qubits on a chip to be wired together via a ‘quantum information bus’ carrying single photons.
But to perform the logic operations vital to a quantum computer, two qubits have to become entangled.
The researchers believe that these logic gates could be scaled up to include many qubits in a large, workable quantum computer.
