(July 2, 2015)
Physicists at the University of Sussex have found a way of using
everyday technology found in kitchen microwaves and mobile telephones to bring
quantum physics closer to helping solve enormous scientific problems that the
most powerful of today’s supercomputers cannot even begin to embark upon.
A team led by Professor Winfried Hensinger has frozen single
charged atoms to within a millionth of a degree of absolute zero (minus
273.15°C) with the help of microwave radiation.
This technique will simplify the construction of ‘quantum
technology devices’ including powerful quantum sensors, ultra-fast quantum
computers, and ultra-stable quantum clocks. Quantum technologies make use of
highly strange and counter-intuitive phenomena predicted by the theory of
quantum physics.