Physicists Control the Spin of a Single Electron 98
jeeb writes "Researchers of the Delft University of Technology and the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter have succeeded for the first time in controlling the spin of a single electron in a nanostructure. They are able to rotate the axis to every possible direction and to record it accordingly. This achievement makes it possible to use the electron's spin as a 'quantum bit,' the basis of a (still theoretical) future quantum computer. The researchers have published this scientific breakthrough in the August 17, 2006 edition of Nature."
Well, that's that. (Score:1, Funny)
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Obligatory (Score:2)
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spin it up (Score:2, Interesting)
Hopefully we won't see this applied to spinner rims anytime soon (actually, we wouldn't be able to see it at all, so who cares?!).
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Re:spin it up (Score:5, Informative)
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the electron is not spinning (Score:1)
Actually, the electron is not "spinning". When we talk about spin it's an analogy.
The terminology comes from two types of angular momentum in classical physics. One is "orbital" angular momentum, which comes about when an object is moving relative to some other point, like the earth going around the sun. The other kind is "spin" angular momentum, which is the rotation of an object about its centre of mass (like the earth spinning on its axis). The total angular momentum is the sum of these two differe
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Stop That (Score:5, Funny)
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Furthermore, it makes the molecule wobbly, and then, due to the Uncertainty Principle, they can no longer find the damn thing...
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I'll say they're controlling the spin... (Score:4, Funny)
If that isn't controlled spin, I don't know what is. (grin)
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Every possibly direction? (Score:1)
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Or did you think they meant change the direction of the rotation? They mean changing the direction of the axis itself.
Re:Every possibly direction? (Score:5, Informative)
"Such particles and the spin of quantum mechanical systems ("particle spin") possesses several unusual or non-classical features, and for such systems, spin angular momentum cannot be associated with rotation but instead refers only to the presence of angular momentum."
jfs
Amazing. (Score:3, Interesting)
One thing -- there is no mention in the article about how _long_ it takes to read the electron's spin. It would be interesting to know. It says they simply have to see whether the two electrons can be placed next to each other. How is this done and how long does it take? I would assume for a quantum computer to be useable this method must be able to be executed quite quickly. (Maybe the speed isn't important?)
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So I think it is only limited by the speed of the equipment, not the process.
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Researchers (Score:5, Funny)
The researchers working on this are doing so to obtain their PhDs. Presumably they will henceforth be known as "spin doctors".
Re:Researchers (Score:5, Funny)
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Dontcha think it's a fantastic nickname?
How about an ansible? (Score:1)
Can't we use this to finally test the idea of entangled electrons sharing the same spin?
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The answer to your question is, believe it or not, in NP. The size of the input is 4000 times the size of the question "0=0?", so I just have to run it through my deterministic machine for a little while. I'll let you know when it's finished...
In the meantime, somebody please correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure you will), but you shouldn't actually need to distribute a problem across multiple quantum computers - the
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I, alas, have only a PSAT-solver. Sigh.
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I don't think so, mainly because they just have to measure local fields (I think).
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Anybody out there with a PhD in Quantum Information Theory, please feel free to explain it to me.
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Quite an achievement (Score:1, Funny)
It does beg the question of why they were spinning it in the first place, rather than playing Chuckie Egg, but the minds of scientists are quite different from yours or mine, and we should just sit back and applaud the achievement.
Electrons do not spin! (Score:1, Informative)
Is it ironic that the crypto word for this post is "nature"?
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HEATHENS !!!!!!! (Score:2)
There, I Said It... (Score:2, Funny)
v.m
Re:My feeble attempts to understand quantum physic (Score:2, Interesting)
O come on! (Score:1)
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</snark> Just kidding.
This + Quantum Entanglement = FTL Communication? (Score:2)
Umm, okay. Can some big-brain 'splain it to me using small words so I'll be sure to understand?
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Now, given that you have a message that you want to send to the other end. This means that somehow you have to control what the person on th
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Re:This + Quantum Entanglement = FTL Communication (Score:1, Troll)
It's not as if physicists collectively have large bets out on the inability to communicate or travel faster than light; indeed, for the person who manages it it's probably a guaranteed Nobel prize and quite possibly public acclaim that physics hasn't seen since Einstein.
If you want a more technical explanation, go Google for it. I'm tired of explaining it to people who don't want to believe it and use their mighty high-school-dropout physics s
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Parlor Trick? (Score:1)
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That said, I am very interested in this sort of thing but stuff that I google about is either written for folks with more background than I have or are written by quacks who want to sell me a quantum cure for athlete's foot. *shrug* Not that I expected a lot of difference here on
Small word explanation (Score:3, Informative)
Say you have two balls, one red, and one blue. You blindly put them into two identical boxes, and ship one to Pluto. After that's done, you open the box here on Earth and see that it's red. You instantly know the color of the ball on Pluto is blue. What good does that do you? Nothing.
The quantum entaglement is almost the same, except that the balls don't finalize their c
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The question of This + Quantum Entaglement is also flawed, you can't have both. If you set the spin of one, you've destroyed the entaglement.
True, according to this once you set the spin of an electron you destory the entanglement.
but not until *after* that new state was reflected in the other entangled electron, correct? If thi sis the case, can't you ship a billion billion entangled electrons from X to y, and set the spin of ones at X to send a message to Y? Sure, you can only use each entanglement once
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Electrons do not spin around an axis (Score:2, Interesting)
An electron does not only have an electrical charge, but it also behaves like an ultrasmall magnet. This is caused by the spinning of the electron around its axis, also called 'spin'.
Electrons do not move about their axis, the spin is a measure of the magnetic angular momentum, if memory serves from quantum physics. Also, no, electrons do not only have two directions to spin, their spin can be
Karl Rove is involved. (Score:1)
They've either contracted with him or James Carville.
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i have some other questions though: for one thing, are they realling claiming they can "lock up" an electron? doesnt that imply that they know both its location and momentum (stationary) at the same time?
Great, now even physicists are doing it (Score:2)
so? (Score:1)
tone
Gyroscope? (Score:2)
Does the nucleus of the atom (protons, neutrons) spin in the same direction as the electrons (similar to our Sun & planets)?
How does the whole 'electron cloud' theory even make it possible to detect the spin? (I thought that these quantum measurments affected the
was it really us? (Score:3, Funny)
Old stuff (Score:2)
"single" electron? (Score:2)
How did these guys know they had a single electron, and it was always the same electron?
Finally! (Score:1)
We should have one in only a year or two!
</sarcasm>
quantum entanglement = instant communication? (Score:2)
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Stupid question.... (Score:1)
anouther step for quantum computers (Score:1)