Researchers in quantum memory breakthrough

The breakthrough was made by a team from Simon Fraser University in Canada. In the experiment, quantum bits of information, or qubits, were put into a superposition state in which they could be both 1s and 0s at the same time - enabling them to perform multiple calculations simultaneously. The temperature of the system was raised from -269°C to 25°C, and the superposition states were shown to survive at this temperature for 39 minutes – substantially longer than the previous record of just two seconds. The team even found that they could manipulate the qubits as the temperature of the system rose, and that they were robust enough for this information to survive being 'refrozen' (the optical technique used to read the qubits only works at very low temperatures). Mike Thewalt, who led the research, commented: "39 minutes may not seem very long but as it only takes one hundred thousandth of a second to flip the nuclear spin of a phosphorus ion - the type of operation used to run quantum calculations - in theory over 2million operations could be applied in the time it takes for the superposition to naturally decay by 1%. "This opens up the possibility of truly long term coherent information storage at room temperature." Looking ahead, the researchers say there is still work to be done before large scale quantum communications can be carried out. To run calculations, the team will need to place different qubits in different states. "To have them controllably taking to one another – that would address the last big remaining challenge," noted Oxford University's Stephanie Simmons, who helped with the research.