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An illustration of two atoms entangled across a great distance. | Credit: VICTOR de SCHWANBERG\/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Using optical tweezers composed of laser light, researchers have developed a novel way to manipulate individual atoms and create a state of hyper-entanglement.<\/p>\n
This breakthrough could lead to new forms of quantum computing<\/a> and advances in quantum simulations designed to answer fundamental questions about physics.<\/p>\n Caltech scientists have been using optical tweezers to control individual atoms for several decades, leading to a number of advances, including quantum error correction<\/a> and a method for creating the world’s most accurate clocks<\/a>.<\/p>\n One persistent issue in the process, however, has been the natural motion of atoms, which can introduce noise (and errors) into a quantum system. But in the breakthrough study, published in the journal Science<\/a>, that weakness has been transformed.<\/p>\n “We show that atomic motion, which is typically treated as a source of unwanted noise in quantum systems, can be turned into a strength,” said Adam Shaw<\/a> in a statement<\/a> on Caltech’s website, a postdoctoral researcher and first author on the study.<\/p>\n Instead of a disruptive influence, Shaw and colleagues have harnessed that movement to create hyper-entangled sets of atoms. Hyper-entanglement is distinct from traditional quantum entanglement<\/a>, which describes two or more particles that are in-sync and share a property across vast distances. Hyper-entangled atoms, by contrast, can share multiple properties at the same time.<\/p>\n In the experiment, the Caltech team was able to link both the states of motion and electronic states (a measure of an atom’s internal energy level) in a pair of atoms at the same time.<\/p>\n Related: <\/strong>Physicists create hottest Schr\u00f6dinger’s cat ever in quantum technology breakthrough<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n This achievement is an important step in terms of both volume and efficiency, according to Manuel Endres<\/a>, a professor of physics at Caltech and co-lead author of the study. “This allows us to encode more quantum information per atom,” he said in the statement. “You get more entanglement with fewer resources.”<\/p>\n To achieve that state of hyper-entanglement, the team first had to cool an alkaline earth atom with no charge using a novel method that Endres said involved “detection and subsequent active correction of thermal motional excitations.” By deploying this method, the team was able to almost completely freeze the atom’s motion.<\/p>\n The next step was to cause atoms to oscillate like a pendulum on a tiny scale in two different directions simultaneously, creating a state of superposition<\/a> \u2014 when a particle exhibits opposite properties at the same time. These oscillating atoms were then entangled with partners that matched their motion, and finally hyper-entangled to also mirror their electronic states.<\/p>\n RELATED STORIES<\/p>\n \u2014Quantum computing: What is quantum error correction (QEC) and why is it so important?<\/a><\/p>\n