Cryogenic Instrumentation for Quantum Electronics Collaboration gains a new member to supply cryogenic consultancy and an ultra low temperature system
Oxford Instruments Superconductivity is joining the Cryogenic Instrumentation for Quantum Electronics Collaboration.
It will supply cryogenic consultancy and an ultra low temperature (ULT) system to enable the extremely low temperature environments essential for research into quantum electronics, quantum computing, and quantum nanotechnology.
The overall aim of the collaboration is to provide the technological infrastructure that will give UK scientists and industries a head start in the development of new kinds of nanotechnology and their commercial exploitation.
In particular, this will provide the semiconductor industry with an alternative method of technology scaling to provide improvements in chip performance and cost.
Nanotechnology can deliver quantum scale computers and ultimately true quantum computers.
This will open up a completely new level of computing power that will help tackle some of today's most demanding quantum modelling problems and assist in the understanding of previously obscure processes, such as protein folding and other biochemical processes.
The collaboration is headed by Professor Briggs of Oxford University and also includes Cambridge University, Hitachi Europe and the CCLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory.
It is supported by a £2 million fund from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) as part of the Council's Basic Technology Programme.
Oxford Instruments will provide the expertise in the manufacture of cryogenic equipment essential for emerging quantum scale computing and associated nanotechnologies.
"This project brings together a unique combination of UK talent and expertise in quantum information theory," said Professor Briggs. "Together we can exploit advances in solid state quantum scale computing, putting us at the forefront of emerging quantum electronics technologies.
Furthermore, the control circuitry will benefit anyone performing cryogenic electrical measurements, from physics experiments to space applications".
ULT - creating the right environments for nanotechnology.
Oxford Instruments Superconductivity's range of ULT (ultra low temperature) cryogenic systems can create temperatures nearing absolute zero (0 Kelvin) - essential for quantum nanotechnology.
This briefing note explains the significance of the company's contribution to this fascinating area of research.
The definition of nanotechnology is broadly applied to the description of activities at the level of atoms and molecules.
A nanometer is the essence of small.
Measuring one billionth of a metre, it is the width of ten hydrogen atoms laid side-by-side, one hundred thousandth the width of a human hair.
Although nanotechnology defines the area of science and technology where dimensions fall in the nano range, in practice, the term is also applied to technology dealing with structures at the micron scale (millionths of a meter), 1000 times larger than a nanometer. There are two fundamentally different approaches to building structures in the nanoworld.
The first, 'top down', refers to practitioners etching out or adding material to a surface.
The second, 'bottom up', describes the building of organic and inorganic nanostructures atom-by-atom or molecule-by-molecule.
Nanotechnology, as applied today is still in the main at what may be considered the more primitive 'top-down' stage.
The nanotechnology field requires an amalgamation of knowledge and techniques from diverse scientific disciplines including physics, engineering, chemistry, materials science, biology and computing.
New tools that are bringing 'nanodreams' closer to reality include scanning probe microscopes - scanning tunnelling microscopes and atomic force microscopes - and others that create pictures of individual atoms or are capable of moving them from place to place.
Nanoscale research and quantum computing.
The interest in nanotechnology stems from the belief that it will boast superior electrical, chemical, mechanical or optical properties.
Potential benefits include highly specific and efficient catalysts, sensors for the detection of biological and chemical substances, nanoscale signal processors and functional nanodevices.
An area where the nanoscale is of major interest is in the manufacture of ever shrinking computer circuits.
The desire to reduce the size of circuits in electronic chips is driving interest in nano in the field of computing.
Historically computer technology has striven towards the very small.
Today's advanced lithographic techniques can squeeze fraction of a micron wide logic gates onto the surface of silicon chips.
As technological developments continue to shrink parts in order to provide improvements in chip performance and cost, they will ultimately move beyond the limits of silicon to yield logic gates so small that they are only a handful of atoms.
On the atomic scale, the properties of matter are governed by a different set of the rules - the rules of quantum mechanics.
Quantum scale computers are currently being developed that exploit, rather than are constrained, by quantum mechanical rules.
These devices could permit very much higher integration density than conventional technologies.
In addition quantum technology can not only offer new ways of cramming more and more onto silicon chips - true quantum computers will also offer new computational algorithms.
By using quantum properties such as the superposition of pure quantum states (analogue to their classical bits, 0 and 1) of quantum entities, quantum computer will be able to perform calculations in parallel rather than sequentially - quantum computer parallelism properties. These quantum algorithms will allow quantum computers to perform tasks that would take classical computers exponentially more time and memory to complete.
The power of quantum computing can, for instance, be illustrated in the factorisation of large numbers (ie decomposition of any number to the product of prime numbers). Factorisation has critical importance for military cryptography and encoding.
A 400 digit number would require the most powerful classical computer to calculate for 1010 years.
On the other hand, a quantum computer would 'only' require three years.
Significant challenges lie ahead in the field of quantum computing, and complete systems are estimated to be decades away. However embryonic systems are answering questions on how to control quantum phenomena and offer the first steps towards simple logic gates and networks.
Ultimately, quantum computing holds the potential to open a new level of computing power that will help tackle some of today's most demanding quantum modelling problems.
It will turn difficult mathematical problems into easy ones and assist in the understanding of previously obscure processes, such as protein folding and the chemistry of photosynthesis.
Computing in a cold climate.
Many groups around the world are developing systems for quantum computing using different methods - examples include nuclear and electron spins realised in various ways.
The incredible computational power expected of quantum computers relies on a phenomenon known in quantum physics as quantum entanglement.
A key factor in quantum computing is that the entanglement must be sustained long enough to enable a useful program or algorithm to operate.
To keep the coherence times long enough the systems will almost certainly have to be extremely cold.
Some of the most exciting quantum scale computing systems, for example, are single-electron based. To achieve long coherence times their temperature and environment must be held below 1 Kelvin and preferably 100mK.
Furthermore, varying temperature in a sample is a key investigational technique in understanding how electrons flow through molecules. When behaviour is measured as a function of temperature it is possible to unravel the mechanisms involved, so cryogenics are a key necessity.
In particular, only under mK temperatures, as the entropy of the system tends to zero, can the true quantum nature of electronic devices be unravelled from the thermal dissipation and diffusion.
As an internationally recognised world leader in the development of ultra low temperature (ULT) cryogenic systems, Oxford Instruments Superconductivity's cutting edge technologies can create the extremely low temperature environments essential for research into quantum electronics, quantum computing and quantum nanotechnology.
Big collaborations in a nanoworld.
Oxford Instruments Superconductivity holds a leading-edge position in enabling research within the nanotechnology field through its ULT products, including its Kelvinox dilution refrigerator range.
This is reflected in a number high profile customers and collaborations with academic and industrial partners including:
