Upgrading Your Quantum Memory? Don't Forget the Crystals
Quantum communication offers myriad advantages over conventional fiber optic networking, but manipulating electrons or photons to behave in the proper fashion has long kept quantum networking a "theoretical" pursuit. But University of Calgary researchers working with German colleagues at the University of Paderborn have pushed quantum networks a big step closer to reality by demonstrating that specially doped crystals can store and retrieve information encoded in entangled photons. In other words, they've created a form of quantum memory. Like fiber optic networks, information traveling through quantum networks via entangled particles needs somewhere to live - something akin to computer memory - in order for complex computations to take place or sophisticated networks to be created. This isn't easy, as the entangled link between two particles is fragile - tamper with it too much, and the link can be fouled. You also have to make the photon or electron sit still, another...