UNSW physics researcher Sam Gorman
Director of CQC2T, Scientia Professor Michelle Simmons said her team’s approach to building a quantum computer “from the ground up, atom by atom” is inspired by physicist Richard Feynman who said: ‘what I cannot create, I do not understand’. Centre researchers create their atom qubits by precisely positioning and encapsulating individual phosphorus atoms within a silicon chip. Information is stored on the quantum spin of a single phosphorus electron. Simmons’ team use a scanning probe to directly measure the atom’s wave function to show the exact physical location in the chip. “We are the only group in the world who can actually see where our qubits are,” said Prof Simmons.
In the new paper, the team show they can control the interactions between two of these atom qubits so the quantum spins of their electrons become correlated. Building on two other recent results, these three papers collectively confirm the extremely promising prospects for building multi-qubit systems using Centre atom qubits.