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Description
The history of computer technology has involved a sequence of changes from one type of physical realisation to another - from gears to relays to valves to transistors to integrated circuits and so on. Today's advanced lithographic techniques can create chips with features only a fraction of a micron wide. Soon they will yield even smaller parts and inevitably reach a point where logic gates are so small that they are made out of only a handful of atoms. On the atomic scale, matter obeys the rules of quantum mechanics, which are quite different from the
classical rules that determine the properties of conventional logic gates. So if computers are to become smaller in the future, new, quantum technology must replace or supplement what we have now. The point is, however, that quantum technology can offer much more than cramming more and more bits to silicon and multiplying the clock-speed of microprocessors. It can support entirely new kind of computation with qualitatively new algorithms based on quantum principles! I will discuss how scientists develop ever more promising computer technologies leading towards quantum computation.
Organiser(s): Jasper Kirkby / EP Division
Further reading: If you want to learn more, click on 'more information' - The centre for Quantum Computation at the University of Oxford has several WWW tutorial pages and links devoted to quantum computation.
Organiser(s): Jasper Kirkby / EP Division
Further reading: If you want to learn more, click on 'more information' - The centre for Quantum Computation at the University of Oxford has several WWW tutorial pages and links devoted to quantum computation.