In a step towards the development of revolutionary quantum computing, a team of researchers created circuitry that takes advantage of the quantum bit (qubit) while taking care of its vulnerability environmentally induced error.
The groundbreaking circuitry self-checks for errors and suppresses them, keeping the qubit pure and the system stable, the University of California, Santa Barbara reported. The study's success has been dubbed a "major milestone" towards creating superconducting quantum computers that could put even our most advanced technology to shame.
"One of the biggest challenges in quantum computing is that qubits are inherently faulty," said Julian Kelly, graduate student researcher and co-lead author of a research paper that was published in the journal Nature. "So if you store some information in them, they'll forget it."
In classic computing, the computer bits can only exist on one of two binary positions, but in quantum computing qubits could exist in all positions and in multiple dimensions in a phenomenon known of as "superpositioning." This feature is what would give quantum computing its incredible power, but is also what makes the qubit so unstable.
In order to solve this problem the researchers created an error process in which multiple qubits "work together" to store and protect information. The system employs a scheme dubbed "surface code," which uses the measurement of change from original data (parity information). This technique allows the origin of the information stored in the qubits to remain unobserved.
"You can't measure a quantum state, and expect it to still be quantum," said postdoctoral researcher Rami Barends.
Once measurement occurs it locks the qubit into a single state, causing it to lose its superpositioning power.
"So you pull out just enough information to detect errors, but not enough to peek under the hood and destroy the quantum-ness," Kelly said.
The technique has already been proven to protect against the "bit-flip" error, and in the future the researchers hope to discover how to use it to prevent "phase-flip" as well.
