Scientists may have spotted a long-sought triplet superconductor — a material that can transmit both electricity and electron spin with zero resistance. That ability could dramatically stabilize quantum computers while slashing their energy use. Early experiments suggest the alloy NbRe behaves unlike any conventional superconductor. If verified, it could become a cornerstone of next-generation quantum and spintronic technology.
essentially a conductor for “spin currents”
“The fact that triplet superconductors have spin has an important consequence. We can now transport not only electrical currents but also spin currents with absolutely zero resistance,” explained Linder.
That ability could make it possible to transmit information using spin without any energy loss. In turn, extremely fast computers could operate using almost no electricity at all.
I don’t know what any of this means… but cool!
Still need massive amounts of energy to cool them down to superconducting temperatures
Well, if we had these aboard the International Space Station or a spaceship, we could simply choose to crank the heat down in the computer room. Might actually save energy in that case.
Dream big!
It is very hard to cool things down in space
How about in a crater on a Moon pole?
Depends how far you are from the Sun
No, in general
There only way to expell heat is via radiation, which is very slow
Interesting, I didn’t know that
Yeah, getting rid of heat is the main issue in space. Insulating against cold is trivial.
But the principle behind it is why vacuum insulated tumblers can hold ice/hot liquid for so long.
So…does this mean it will soon be able to multiply two-digit numbers?
It would be a terrible machine for that. Never use a quantum computer to multiply numbers.
Isn’t that kind of a thing it needs to do to find the factorials of large numbers to break traditional encryption?
Not really. It needs to apply unitary operators to elements in Hilbert space, which is essentially multiplying matrices onto vectors.
Which you could do by multiplying the involved numbers one by one, as most classical methods would, but then you’re missing the point of using a quantum computer.
NbRe? Why not a computer made of rhino horn ivory?
just in time for all the bad press it got last week!
