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CERN Computing Seminar
Quantum Computing (Defect-tolerant Molecular Nanoelectronics)
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Europe/Zurich
500/1-001 - Main Auditorium (CERN)
Description
Both economic and general physics considerations indicate that the scaling era of the CMOS integrated circuit will saturate around the year 2010. However, fundamental physical laws also indicate that it should be possible to compute with a power efficiency that is at least a billion times better than present silicon electronics. The most
straightforward way currently known to achieve such efficiencies are to make things very much smaller than they are at present.
Two complementary avenues of research are relevant to such future nanoelectronic systems: the development of a quantum-state switching device and the design of a system that will assemble itself once the discrete components have been brought together.
A group of researchers from UCLA and Hewlett-Packard Labs have recently demonstrated that it is possible to construct molecular switches in a solid state device that can be set and read electronically, although the switch itself is nonreversible. Work is
continuing in this area in order to make reversible switches, as well as in the self-assembly of the nanowire arrays.
Very real progress has been made on many different fronts, but there are still significant opportunities and requirements for invention and discovery before nanoelectronics are a reality.
About the speaker:
R. Stanley Williams is Senior Principal Laboratory Scientist and Director of the Quantum Structures Research Initiative (QSRI), the basic research department at Hewlett-Packard Laboratories.
Dr. Williams attended Rice University from 1970-74, where he obtained his B. A. degree in Chemical Physics. He attended the University of California Berkeley from 1974-1978, where he obtained his M. S. and PhD. degrees in Physical Chemistry