Terahertz light waves can accelerate supercurrents for quantum computing, claim scientists

Professor Jigang Wang at Iowa State University also researching macroscopic supercurrent flowing states to create quantum controls

Scientists from Iowa State University claim to have used terahertz light waves to create accelerated supercurrents for quantum computing.

The researchers say that their experiments show that it is possible to use high-frequency light waves to control some essential quantum properties of superconducting states, including broken symmetry, macroscopic supercurrent flowing, and accessing some specific high frequency quantum oscillations.

"I like to study quantum control of superconductivity exceeding the gigahertz, or billions of cycles per second, bottleneck in current state-of-the-art quantum computation applications," said Professor Jigang Wang from Iowa State University.

Wang revealed that his team has carried out experiments in which terahertz light was used as a control knob to accelerate supercurrents. He further revealed that they are working to find new macroscopic supercurrent flowing states and to create quantum controls for modulating and switching those states.

Wang talked about the experiments performed using a terahertz spectroscopy instrument. The results of those experiments suggested that terahertz light-wave tuning of supercurrents could play a key role in "pushing quantum functionalities to reach their ultimate limits in many cross-cutting disciplines."

"Light-induced supercurrents chart a path forward for electromagnetic design of emergent materials properties and collective coherent oscillations for quantum engineering applications," the researchers wrote in their study paper.

"By exploiting interactions of these quantum systems, next-generation technologies for sensing, computing, modelling, and communicating will be more accurate and efficient."

The researchers also believe that their novel discovery could help scientists develop ultrafast quantum computers in the near future. The research was supported by the US Army Research Office.

The detailed findings of the study are published in journal Nature Photonics.

Terahertz radiation is electromagnetic radiation at ultra-high frequencies (trillions of cycles per second). The frequency range of such radiation is roughly from 0.1THz to 10THz, which is higher than those of microwaves and radio waves, but lower than those of infrared light.

In recent years, scientists have used terahertz radiation for a variety of applications, including imaging, communications, spectroscopic investigation of superconductors, molecules, and so on.

Indeed, in 2016, a team of scientists from across Europe claimed that terahertz radiation could boost memory cell performance by 1,000 times.

In December 2018, meanwhile, a team of researchers from Massachusetts institute of Technology developed a new Terahertz laser for chemical sensing and imaging.