The textile is a plebeian low-spirited paint , called copper phthalocyanine ( CuPc ) , which is used in the £ 5 British musical note . Researchers from the London Centre for Nanotechnology at UCL and theUniversityofBritish Columbiahave publish a paper in the journalNatureproposing that CuPc could play an important part in the development of a quantum computer .
CuPc is a low - cost organic semiconductor found in many household intersection , and can be processed into a thin film that can be easy used for machine fabrication . This collapse the material a considerable advantage over similar materials researched . Theteam of researchersshowed that the electrons in CuPc can persist in ' superposition principle ' , a quantum effect where the negatron live in two states at once , for inordinately long period of sentence . This shew the dyestuff molecule could potentially be used as a metier for quantum technology .
Quantum computing requires exact control of ‘ qubits’ . Qubitsare unit of quantum selective information that are the quantum analogue of the binary bits ‘ 0 ’ and ‘ 1 ’ . Bits are the basic units of information and are used to represent info by computers . A fleck is always understood to be a 0 or a 1 . A qubit can also have two possible value – commonly a 0 or a 1 . Quantum mechanic allow for the qubit to be in a superposition of both states at the same time . The difference between a bit and a qubit is that a turn must be either 0 or 1 whereas a qubit can be 0 , 1 or a principle of superposition of both .
It is the decay clock time of these superpositions that signal how useful a candidate qubit could be in quantum technologies . The longer the meter , the more probable it is that quantum information storage , use and transmission are possible . A quantum data processor could in theory figure out problems that a classical calculator can not in the lifetime of the universe . The times were witness to be surprisingly foresightful for CuPc , with the lifetime of a quantum spot encoded in the phase of the quantum state found to be2.6μsat 5 Kelvinand 1μsat 80K.
CuPc , despite being a common blue dyestuff , seems to have more potential for quantum computing than other exotic material look at . The material has many property that could overwork the spin of electrons , rather than their bursting charge , to store and serve information . The paint strongly absorbs visible light and is easy to modify chemically and physically . This means that its charismatic and electrical properties can be controlled .
