UNSW quantum engineers have created quantum entanglement between two distant atoms in silicon using electrons as a bridge.

Based at the University of Glasgow, the Centre will run a national pilot with educators, schools, and local authorities to develop spatial learning in schools across Scotland, with the aim of reaching 40% of Scottish classrooms by 2028. The pilot, led by University of Glasgow researchers, is funded by the Turner Kirk Trust and the Scottish Government.

Spatial reasoning skills enable people to work with complex structured information, and are strongly correlated with maths ability. Initial studies deployed in primary schools have shown that learning maths while exercising spatial reasoning increases performance in the subject by 20% and can reduce attainment gaps.

The launch of the Turner Kirk Centre for Spatial Reasoning comes against a background of intense efforts to enhance maths education and numeracy outcomes in Scotland from the Government and Education Scotland.

A pioneering team of scientists at Simon Fraser University have created a new type of silicon-based quantum device controlled both optically and electrically, marking the latest breakthrough in the global quantum computing race.

Published in the journal Nature Photonics, researchers at the SFU Silicon Quantum Technology Lab and leading Canada-based quantum company Photonic Inc. reveal new diode nanocavity devices for electrical control over silicon colour centre qubits.

The devices have achieved the first-ever demonstration of an electrically-injected single-photon source in silicon. The breakthrough clears another hurdle toward building a quantum computer – which has enormous potential to provide computing power well beyond that of today’s supercomputers and advance fields like chemistry, materials science, medicine and cybersecurity.

While many plans for quantum computers transmit data using the particles of light known as photons, researchers from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) are turning to sound. In a new paper out today in Nature Physics, a team uniting UChicago PME’s experimentalist Cleland Lab and theoretical Jiang Group demonstrated deterministic phase control of phonons, tiny mechanical vibrations that, on a much larger scale, would be considered sound. By removing the randomness inherent in photon-based systems, this phase control could give sound an edge over light in building tomorrow’s quantum computers.

Researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Humboldt University in Berlin have developed a way to capture nearly all the light emitted from tiny diamond defects known as color centers. By placing nanodiamonds into specially designed hybrid nanoantennas with extreme precision, the team achieved record photon collection at room temperature— a necessary step for quantum technologies such as quantum sensors, and quantum-secured communications. The article was selected as a Featured Article in APL Quantum.