Researchers have begun to self-assemble quantum components on the nanometer scale. This is beginning of a multi-decade process to revolutionize the computing.
An international team of physicists say they’ve used biological self-assembly techniques to make diamond-based prototypes of the quantum information storage devices of this type. That’s a development that has the potential to profoundly influence the future of computing.
The key to all this is nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond which behave like single atoms. They can store photons, emit them again and interact with other nitrogen-vacancy centres nearby. In fact, their photon storage ability is legendary, holding them, and the information the carry, for periods stretching to milliseconds. At room temperature.
That’s significantly longer and more robust than other quantum information storage devices.
They modified a well known ring-shaped protein called SP1 so that it binds to diamond. In fact, they created 12 binding sites on this ring allowing it to hold six nanodiamonds in hexagonal formation.
They then used a laser to generate nanodiamonds just 5 nanometres across by blasting them off a larger crystal. They placed the resulting crystals in a liquid which they poured onto a layer of the modified SP1 rings.
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Nanodiamond (ND)-SP1 arrays and clusters
(a) DF-STEM (Dark eld scanning transmission electron microscopy) image of ND structures on an SP1-ordered monolayer (ND diameter 5nm). The hexagonal arrangement in the white dashed square is magni ed in part (b). Yellow and red circles show diamond dimers and trimers, respectively, with inner distances of 11 nm.
(b) Enlarged section of the white dashed square of (a) showing a hexagonal structure formed of 7 NDs.
The symmetry and distances are determined by the underlying SP1-layer.
(c) SP1-protein ring: The inner linkers (binding
sites) are genetically modi fied to enable graphite speci c binding.
(d) Schematic of an ordered hexagonal array of SP1-NDs hybrids consisting of a ND attached to the SP1 inner cavity. Here the SP1-monolayer serves as a structural scaff old.
(e)SEM image of larger (ND diameter 30nm) clusters connected by SP1 and obtained in solution.
Arxiv - Self-assembling hybrid diamond-biological quantum devices (35 pages)
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An international team of physicists say they’ve used biological self-assembly techniques to make diamond-based prototypes of the quantum information storage devices of this type. That’s a development that has the potential to profoundly influence the future of computing.
The key to all this is nitrogen-vacancy centres in diamond which behave like single atoms. They can store photons, emit them again and interact with other nitrogen-vacancy centres nearby. In fact, their photon storage ability is legendary, holding them, and the information the carry, for periods stretching to milliseconds. At room temperature.
That’s significantly longer and more robust than other quantum information storage devices.
They modified a well known ring-shaped protein called SP1 so that it binds to diamond. In fact, they created 12 binding sites on this ring allowing it to hold six nanodiamonds in hexagonal formation.
They then used a laser to generate nanodiamonds just 5 nanometres across by blasting them off a larger crystal. They placed the resulting crystals in a liquid which they poured onto a layer of the modified SP1 rings.
Nanodiamond (ND)-SP1 arrays and clusters
(a) DF-STEM (Dark eld scanning transmission electron microscopy) image of ND structures on an SP1-ordered monolayer (ND diameter 5nm). The hexagonal arrangement in the white dashed square is magni ed in part (b). Yellow and red circles show diamond dimers and trimers, respectively, with inner distances of 11 nm.
(b) Enlarged section of the white dashed square of (a) showing a hexagonal structure formed of 7 NDs.
The symmetry and distances are determined by the underlying SP1-layer.
(c) SP1-protein ring: The inner linkers (binding
sites) are genetically modi fied to enable graphite speci c binding.
(d) Schematic of an ordered hexagonal array of SP1-NDs hybrids consisting of a ND attached to the SP1 inner cavity. Here the SP1-monolayer serves as a structural scaff old.
(e)SEM image of larger (ND diameter 30nm) clusters connected by SP1 and obtained in solution.
Arxiv - Self-assembling hybrid diamond-biological quantum devices (35 pages)
Read more »
