Break 1024-bit encryption while protecting your clothes closet!

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All you need for quantum computing at room temperature is some mothballs
21 Jul 2016 at 11:00, Mohammad Choucair

Much of the current research on the development of a quantum computer involves work at very low temperatures. The challenge to make them more practical for everyday use is to make them work at room temperature.

The breakthrough here came from the use of some everyday materials, with details published today in Nature Communications.

***SNIP***

An electron has a charge and a spin – the spin determines if an atom will generate a magnetic field. The spin can also be used as a qubit as it can undergo transitions between the spin-up and spin-down quantum states, represented classically by 0 and 1.

But the electron spin states therefore need to be robust against “decoherence”. This is the disordering of the electron spins during quantum superposition which results in the loss of information.

The electron spin lifetimes are affected by lattice vibrations in a material and neighbouring magnetic interactions. Long electron spin lifetimes exceeding 100 nanoseconds are needed for quantum computing.

Cooling a material to low temperatures close to absolute zero, -273C, does increases the spin lifetime. So too does the use of magnetically pure conducting materials.

***SNIP***

A conducting material of light atomic weight with a long electron spin lifetime exceeding 100 nanoseconds at room temperature would permit practical quantum computing. Such a material would combine the best aspects of current solid-state material qubit schemes....

We have demonstrated that a long conduction electron spin lifetime in metallic-like material made up of carbon nanospheres can be achieved at room temperature.

This material was produced simply by burning naphthalene, the active ingredient in mothballs.

The material is produced as a solid powder and handled in air. It can then be dispersed in ethanol and water solvents, or deposited directly onto a surface like glass. As the material was remarkably homogeneous, the measurements could be made on the bulk solid powder.

This allowed us to achieve a new record electron spin lifetime of 175 nanoseconds at room temperature. This might not sound like a long time, but it exceeds the prerequisite for applications in quantum computing and is about 100 times longer than that found in graphene.

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http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/07/21/all_you_need_for_quantum_computing_at_room_temperature_is_some_mothballs/