Spasers, Plasmons, and Computers-The Next Generation

[nanonyme]

Let me emphasize though that I do not consider quantum computers a practical application yet. I just call "hype" card on spasers until further proof.

[LenS]

Intersting. I'm glad you know what ions are. What's surprising then is that you think that the the "milestone achievement" in quantum computing made last August, which was 2 months ago and not 2 years, is comparative to the breakthrough with spasers.

Manipulating 2 ions, cooled to near absolute zero, in a vacuum chamber is a long way from making a computer with them, especially anything remotely resembling a supercomputer. Do you have any idea of the refrigeration equipment necessary to cool something to near absolute zero? It's not portable, unless you have an 18 wheeler. (-: You;d need a whole building devoted to it, much like the mainframes of old. Laser cooling has been around for many years, using it to cool individual atoms is an important, but limited, achievement.

I KNOW there is a LOT of research going into quantum computers. What you may not be aware of, is that most of it is under the radar by defense and intelligence agencies. The lure of totally secure cryptographic communications is "gotta have" for governments all over the world. It's also a reason why many advances will be classified and not published. "Gotta have" is counterbalanced by "can't let anyone else have". This doesn't mean there will be any practical breakthroughs anytime soon. Maybe 20-30 years, around the time controlled nuclear fusion is harnessed. :-) They spend billions on that every year too.

Spasers have been made. At 44 nanometers, comparative to the die size of transistors now. What's important in the article is this sentence:

"His team accomplished this by coating the gold with a layer of silica embedded with dye. "

The semi-conductor industry is very experienced working with silicon. That's been the big holdup with integrating optics onto wafers. This appears to be close to being solved, if not already.

The last article was a FYI on current developments in quantum computing. It also explained the problems with decoherence which make cooling near 0 degrees Kelvin necessary.

Bringing a technology to market is dependent more on the ability to manufacture it than the physics behind it. Depositing gold and silicon doped with dye on wafers, is something the industry is very familiar with and adept at. Manipulating individual ions at 3 degrees Kelvin is another thing entirely, something no fab has any experience with.

I have no doubt that the CIA, NSA, SVR (KGB), MI5, etc. will spend lavishly and work feverishly to development quantum cryptography. It will be a long, long time before anyone else does any quantum computing.

[nanonyme]

Manipulating 2 ions, cooled to near absolute zero, in a vacuum chamber is a long way from making a computer with them, especially anything remotely resembling a supercomputer.

True, it would require immensive amounts of energy and is even completely impractical on planet surface, somewhat more in space though. Something like junking a nuclear reactor in an enormous near vacuum of -270C should be a good start coupled together with the computer. Then just link it up with the communications network. But as said, it doesn't matter whether quantum computers can be done or not. Heck, it doesn't even matter whether spasers can be done or not. What matters is that I don't believe spasers will end up in practical use for a long time, as I said all along, and I'm not sure me arguing on hypothetical things is going to get us very far. We'll see what happens.