Quantum dots could bridge gap between electronic and quantum computers

An intriguing type of quantum computing is one step closer to practicality with the announcement today that experts at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Stanford University and the Technical University of Munich have managed to solve one of the technology’s major problems using common semiconductor materials.

The idea behind quantum computing, in the broadest possible strokes, is to use the quantum state of a small particle to store information. The advantage is that each of these particles, called qubits, can store a large range of values, while the regular bits at the core of electronic computers can only represent zero or one. Consequently, the theory goes, certain kinds of computation could be performed at vastly superior speeds.

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