New ion cooling technique could simplify quantum computing devices

Phys.org  February 6, 2024 In current QCCD implementations, imperfect ion transport and anomalous heating can excite ion motion during a calculation. To counteract this, intermediate cooling is necessary to maintain high-fidelity gate performance. Cooling the computational ions sympathetically with ions of another species creates a significant runtime bottleneck. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology demonstrated exchange cooling which does not require trapping two different atomic species. They introduced a bank of “coolant” ions which were repeatedly laser cooled. A computational ion could be cooled by transporting a coolant ion into its proximity. Experimentally they tested this concept and executed […]

Elastocaloric cooling system opens door to climate-friendly AC

Phys.org  June 6, 2023 Various high-efficiency caloric cooling techniques meet the goal of developing zero–global warming potential refrigerants but scaling them up to technologically meaningful performance remains challenging. Caloric cooling is a different strategy that instead relies on moving solids through a phase transition. Researchers at the University of Maryland developed an elastocaloric cooling device that compresses fatigue-resistant bundles of nickel–titanium tubes to obtain an attractive cooling power and maximum temperature difference. Their cooling system has a maximum cooling power of 260 watts and a maximum temperature span of 22.5 kelvin. Its key feature is the compression of fatigue-resistant elastocaloric […]