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Quantum Device Unveiled

by Dave Murphy
ISSN 1535-3613

Scientists have unveiled a miniature device that emits light particles, or photons, one at a time, an accomplishment which could pave the way for impregnable coded messages and electronic commerce in coming decades.

Reporting in today's issued of Science magazine, scientists at the University of California-Santa Barbara have been able to create a photon "turnstile," by placing "quantum dots"-- crystals containing confined groups of negative- and positive-charged atoms -- onto a mushroom-shaped semiconductor. When pulsed with a laser, the structure releases a single photon.

Rather than accepting the current standard of 84 percent efficiency, which was recently attained by a Stanford University team, the UC Santa Barbara team's photon turnstile works at 100 percent efficiency. A single photon, every time.

But there's a cool side to this story. Currently the turnstile works at a maximum temperature of minus-321 degrees Fahrenheit. The team hopes to be able to modify the process to work at room temperature by next year.

Support for development of the photon turnstile came from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a Defense Department agency charged with advancing information technology.

What's exciting about this process to IT folks is that single-photon emitters are required to build of quantum computers. Acting much like the CPU of the computer, the photons enable literally a quantum leap in the technology of computer capability.

In theory, such a single light particle offers benefits to people hoping to create secure communications, including bankers in need of secure pathways for transactions or governments relaying secret diplomatic documents.

Writing in Friday's Science, researchers note that such fundamental particles cannot be examined without altering their physical characteristics, part of the physics theory known as quantum mechanics. To create an unbreakable code, physicists plan to send a stream of single photons imprinted with the key to a later coded message.

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