Creating a practical solid-state quantum computer is seriously hard. Getting such a computer to operate at room temperature is even more challenging. Is such a quantum computer possible at all? If so, which schemes might have a chance of success?Subject Areas: Quantum Information, SpintronicsIn his 2008 Newton Medal talk, Anton Zeilinger of the University of Vienna said: "We have to find ways to build quantum computers in the solid state at room temperature-that's the challenge." [1] This challenge spawns further challenges: Why do we need a quantum computer anyway? What would constitute a quantum computer? Why does the solid state seem essential? And would a cooled system, perhaps with thermoelectric cooling, be good enough?Some will say the answer is obvious. But these answers vary from "It's been done already" to "It can't be done at all." Some of the "not at all" group believe high temperatures just don't agree with quantum mechanics. Others recognize that their favored systems cannot work at room temperature. Some scientists doubt that serious quantum computing is possible anyway. Are there methods that might just be able to meet Zeilinger's challenge?
The questions that challengeWhat is a computer? Standard classical computers use bits for encoding numbers, and the bits are manipulated by the classical gates that can execute AND and OR operations, for example. A classical bit has a value of 0 or 1, according to whether some small subunit is electrically charged or uncharged. Other forms are possible: the bits for a classical spintronic computer might be spins along or opposite to a magnetic field. Even the most modest computers on sale today incorporate complex networks of a few types of gates to control huge numbers of bits. If there are so few bits that you can count them on your fingers, it can't seriously be considered a computer.What do we mean by quantum? Being sure a phenomenon is "quantum" isn't simple. Quantum ideas aren't intuitive yet. Could you convince your banker that quantum physics could improve her bank's security? Perhaps three questions identify the issues. First, how do you describe the state of a system? The usual descriptors, wave functions and density matrices, underlie wavelike interference and entanglement. Entanglement describes the correlations between local measurements on two particles, which I call their "quantum dance." Entanglement is the resource that could make quantum computing worthwhile. The enemy of entanglement is decoherence, just as friction is the enemy of mechanical computers. Second, how does this quantum state change if it is not observed? It evolves deterministically, described by the Schrödinger equation. The probabilistic results of measurements emerge when one asks the third question: how to describe observations and their effects. Measurement modifies entanglement, often destroying it, as it singles out a specific state. This is one way that you can tell if an eavesdropper intercepted your message in a quantum communications system.Proposed quantum compute...