One of the biggest obstacles in quantum computing is surprisingly simple to describe: how do you read information without changing or destroying it? Unlike the bits used in ordinary computers, quantum bits, or qubits, are extraordinarily sensitive to measurement. Trying to determine their state can cause that state to collapse, potentially erasing the very information scientists want to retrieve.
Researchers have now proposed a way to overcome much of this difficulty by using an unusual electrical signal produced by the qubit itself. Their approach focuses on a special type known as an "Andreev qubit," which can generate an oscillating electric supercurrent through its own quantum behavior. By monitoring this current, scientists may be able to determine the qubit's state without directly measuring it or significantly disturbing the information it contains.
The research, supported by FAPESP, was published in Physical Review B Letters. It was led by José Carlos Egues, a full professor at the São Carlos Institute of Physics at the University of São Paulo (IFSC-USP) in Brazil, and Yugui Yao of the School of Physics at the Beijing Institute of Technology in China. If experimentally confirmed, their method could simplify quantum computing by removing the need for extra qubits used in certain measurement techniques.
Conventional computers store information in bits that have one of two values, 0 or 1.…
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