Innovations & technologies

I spy with my little eye ... a quantum drum with TRILLIONS of atoms

Gravitational wave measurements, and quantum computing and communications are just two applications of an international experiment that created entanglement between objects large enough to be visible to humans.

At 15 microns, the “drumheads” described in this paper at Nature are of the scale of a human hair, much larger than the photons or atoms that have been the staple of entanglement experiments since the 1970s.

Working at the macro scale offers two important advantages. First, such objects can interact with both photons and microwaves, and could thus act as a channel between quantum communication systems (using photons) and microwave-based quantum computers.

Second, a mechanical system that can be quantum-controlled could be the basis of instruments to measure phenomena such as gravitational waves.