Researchers develop means to reliably read an electron's spin, take us one step closer to the quantum zone

By Tim Stevens posted Sep 30th 2010 1:41PM

Another day, another step bringing us closer to the next big revolution in the world of computing: replacing your transistory bits with qubits. Researchers at Australia's Universities of New South Wales and of Melbourne, along with Finland's Aalto University, have achieved the impossibly tiny goal of reliably reading the spin of a single electron. That may not sound like much, but let's just see you do it quickly without affecting said spin. This particular implementation relies on single atoms of phosphorus embedded in silicon. Yes, silicon, meaning this type of qubit is rather more conventional than others we've read about. Of course, proper quantum computers depend on reading and writingthe spin of individual electrons, so as of now we effectively have quantum ROM. When will that be quantum RAM? They're still working on that bit.