Quantum engineers remove roadblock in developing next-generation technologies

Alireza Shabani , a postdoctoral research associate in chemistry at Princeton University , and an international team of scientists have removed a major obstacle in the quest to engineer quantum systems that will play a major role in the computers, communication networks and biomedical devices of the future. Through a method known as compressive sensing, the researchers say they could drastically simplify the measurement of quantum systems. Their results were published in the March 7 online edition of Physical Review Letters. Shabani and co-authors of the paper describe their research as follows: "In the rapidly advancing world of modern technology, where the phones that we now carry in our pockets far surpass the processing power of the 1980s supercomputers, the process of relentless miniaturization means we are fast approaching the point where quantum effects will dominate our everyday life. "Imagine that you're building a car but you can't test-drive it. This is the situation that quantum engineers are facing at the moment. A crucial problem is that it is extremely difficult to characterize quantum systems: The number of measurements needed blows up exponentially with the number of quantum parts.