Phys.org November 13, 2024 The coherent control of interacting spins in semiconductor quantum dots is of interest for quantum information processing and studying quantum magnetism from the bottom up. Researchers in the Netherlands demonstrated a 2 × 4 germanium quantum dot array with full and controllable interactions between nearest-neighbour spins. As a demonstration of the level of control, they defined four singlet–triplet qubits in this system and showed two-axis single-qubit control of each qubit and SWAP-style two-qubit gates between all neighbouring qubit pairs, yielding average single-qubit gate and Bell state fidelities. Combining these operations, they implemented a circuit designed to generate and […]
Tag Archives: S&T the Netherlands
Superconductivity offers new insights into quantum material MnBiâ‚‚Teâ‚„
Phys.org October 23, 2024 Topological superconductors hosting Majorana zero modes are of great interest for both fundamental physics and potential quantum computing applications. Researchers in the Netherlands investigated the transport properties of the intrinsic magnetic topological insulator MnBi2Te4 (MBT). They found that the presence of chiral edge channels, though with deviations from perfect quantization due to factors such as non-uniform thickness, domain structures, and the presence of quasi-helical edge states. The fabricated superconducting junctions using niobium led on MBT exfoliated flakes, which showed an onset of supercurrent with clear Josephson coupling. The interference patterns in the superconducting junctions revealed interesting […]
Researcher discovers 1 in 5 bacteria can break down plastic
Phys.org June 28, 2024 Researchers in the Netherlands identified an organic compound BHET (Bis(2-Hydroxyethyl) terephthalate) and identified and characterized an enzyme (LipA), which could degrade the PET-derived oligomer BHET. The enzyme exhibited varying sequence similarity to several BHETase/PETase enzymes. SclipA was deleted from S. coelicolor resulting in reduced BHET degradation. Overexpression of all LipA variants significantly enhanced BHET degradation. The optimum conditions were determined as pH 7 and 25 °C for all variants. The activity on BHET and amorphous PET film was investigated. S2LipA efficiently degraded BHET and caused roughening and indents on the surface of PET films, comparable to […]
The end of the quantum tunnel: Exact instanton transseries for quantum mechanics
Phys.org April 26, 2024 Researchers in the Netherlands calculated the instanton corrections to energy spectra of one-dimensional quantum mechanical oscillators to all orders and unify them in a closed form transseries description. They clarified the resurgent structure of these transseries and demonstrated two approaches in which the Stokes constants could be derived. This formulated a minimal one-parameter transseries for the natural nonperturbative extension to the perturbative energy which captured the Stokes phenomenon in a single stroke. They derived these results in three models: quantum oscillators with cubic, symmetric double well and cosine potentials. In the latter two examples, they found […]
A new design for quantum computers
Science Daily February 15, 2024 Arrays of Rydberg atoms are suitable to study quantum phase transitions in one dimension. Theoretically predicted chiral transition out of period-four phase is still pending experimental verification mainly due to extremely short interval over which this transition is realized in a single-component Rydberg array. Researchers in the Netherlands showed that multicomponent Rydberg arrays with extra experimentally tunable parameters provided a mechanism to manipulate quantum critical properties without breaking translation symmetry explicitly. They considered an effective blockade model of two component Rydberg atoms. Weak and strong components obeyed nearest- and next-nearest-neighbor blockades correspondingly. When laser detuning […]
Ocean system that moves heat gets closer to collapse, which could cause weather chaos, study says
Phys.org February 10, 2024 One of the most prominent climate tipping elements is the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC), which can potentially collapse because of the input of fresh water in the North Atlantic. Although AMOC collapses have been induced in complex global climate models by strong freshwater forcing, the processes of an AMOC tipping event have so far not been investigated. Researchers in the Netherlands have shown results of the first tipping event in the Community Earth System Model, including the large climate impacts of the collapse. Using these results, they developed a physics-based and observable early warning signal […]
Controlling waves in magnets with superconductors for the first time
Science Daily October 26, 2023 For spintronics spin-waves have emerged as a promising platform that can offer new functionalities because of their wave nature. However, control of the spin-waves has remained a formidable challenge. Researchers in the Netherlands used superconducting diamagnetism to shape the magnetic environment governing the transport of spin waves in a thin-film magnet. Using diamond-based magnetic imaging, they observed hybridized spin-wave–Meissner-current transport modes with strongly altered, temperature-tunable wavelengths and then demonstrated local control of spin-wave refraction using a focused laser. According to the researchers their results demonstrate the versatility of superconductor-manipulated spin-wave transport and have potential applications […]
Protecting light communication with random objects
Phys.org July 17, 2023 Researchers in the Netherlands have developed an optical communication system with two scattering layers to hide both the sender and receiver, by measuring the correlation of the intermediate speckle generated between the two layers. The binary message is modulated as spatially shaped wavefronts, and the high number of transmission modes of the scattering layers allowed for many uncorrelated incident wavefronts to send the same message, making it difficult for an attacker to intercept or decode the message and thus increasing secrecy. They collected 50,000 intermediate speckle patterns and analyzed their correlation distribution using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) […]
Breakthrough: Scientists develop artificial molecules that behave like real ones
Phys.org June 8, 2023 Researchers in the Netherlands demonstrated a solid-state quantum simulator emulating molecular orbitals, based solely on positioning individual cesium atoms on an indium antimonide surface. Using scanning tunneling microscopy and spectroscopy, combined with ab initio calculations, they showed that artificial atoms could be made from localized states created from patterned cesium rings. The artificial atoms served as building blocks to realize artificial molecular structures with different orbital symmetries. The corresponding molecular orbitals allowed them to simulate two-dimensional structures reminiscent of well-known organic molecules. This system serves as a versatile platform with which to emulate quantum chemistry on […]
Buckle up! A new class of materials is here
Science Daily June 2, 2023 Many passive damping methods rely on using low stiffness, complex mechanical structures, or electrical systems, which render them unfeasible in many of applications. Researchers in the Netherlands have developed a new method for passive vibration damping by allowing buckling of the primary load path in mechanical metamaterials and lattice structures, which sets an upper limit for vibration transmission: the transmitted acceleration saturates at a maximum value in both tension and compression, no matter what the input acceleration is. This nonlinear mechanism leads to an extreme damping coefficient —orders of magnitude larger than the linear damping […]