Physicists control the spin of a single electron

jeroenb writes: Researchers of the Delft University of Technology and the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter have succeeded for the first time in the world in controlling the spin of a single electron in a nanostructure. They are able to rotate the spin 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.