Quantum Physics

The performance of quantum computers could cap out after around 1,000 qubits, according to a new analysis published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Through new calculations, Tim Palmer at the University of Oxford has reconsidered the mathematical foundations underlying the quantum principles behind the technology, concluding that restrictions on the information-carrying capacity of large quantum systems could make their computing power far more limited than many researchers predict.

Scientists in Australia have demonstrated a prototype quantum battery that could revolutionize energy storage. By harnessing quantum effects, it can absorb energy in a rapid “super absorption” event, enabling much faster charging than conventional batteries. Even more surprisingly, the system becomes more efficient as it scales up. The research opens the door to ultra-fast, next-generation energy technologies.

Qilimanjaro is selling a relatively cheap kit with everything you need for a quantum computer – you just need to be able to put it together

A routine quantum optics technique just revealed an extraordinary secret: entangled light can carry incredibly complex topological structures. Researchers found these hidden patterns reach up to 48 dimensions, offering a vast new “alphabet” for encoding quantum information. Unlike previous assumptions, this topology can emerge from a single property of light—orbital angular momentum.

Physicists have directly visualized the fundamental electronic building blocks of flat-band quantum materials, a class of systems in which electron motion is effectively quenched and strong interactions give rise to emergent phases of matter. In a study published in Nature Physics, Qimiao Si's group at Rice University, in collaboration with researchers at the Weizmann Institute of Science, identified compact molecular orbitals that act as the key electronic agents governing the exotic behavior of these materials.

In new research published in Physical Review X, scientists have designed quantum control protocols that generate processes more consistent with time flowing backward than forward. The protocols—techniques to control quantum systems—modify a quantum system's "arrow of time," the concept of time as moving in one forward direction. The work opens up possibilities for energy extraction from quantum systems and for quantum state preparation.

Over the past decades, quantum scientists have introduced various technologies that operate leveraging quantum mechanical effects, including quantum sensors, computers and memory devices. Most of these technologies leverage entanglement, a quantum phenomenon via which two or more particles become intrinsically linked and share a unified quantum state, irrespective of the distance between them.

This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. A $5 million prize awaits proof that quantum computers can solve health care problems  In a laboratory on the outskirts of Oxford, a quantum computer built from atoms and light awaits…

Nature is the foremost international weekly scientific journal in the world and is the flagship journal for Nature Portfolio. It publishes the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature publishes landmark papers, award winning news, leading comment and expert opinion on important, topical scientific news and events that enable readers to share the latest discoveries in science and evolve the discussion amongst the global scientific community.

Nature is the foremost international weekly scientific journal in the world and is the flagship journal for Nature Portfolio. It publishes the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature publishes landmark papers, award winning news, leading comment and expert opinion on important, topical scientific news and events that enable readers to share the latest discoveries in science and evolve the discussion amongst the global scientific community.

I’m standing in front of a quantum computer built out of atoms and light at the UK’s National Quantum Computing Centre on the outskirts of Oxford. On a laboratory table, a complex matrix of mirrors and lenses surrounds a Rubik’s Cube–size cell where 100 cesium atoms are suspended in grid formation by a carefully manipulated…

China is on track to produce national standards for post-quantum cryptography within three years, according to Wang Xiaoyun,

Quantum computers could solve certain problems that would take traditional classical computers an impractically long time to solve. At the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST), researchers are now working to make these systems reliable and trustworthy.

Duo bag award often described as the “Nobel Prize in Computing” The post Quantum physicists Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard win $1m Turing Award appeared first on Physics World.

You're late for an important appointment. Just as you are leaving your house, you realize your phone is flat. Imagine you could charge it almost instantly by exploiting the strange rules of quantum physics. That's the promise of quantum batteries.

Quantum communication systems are emerging solutions to transmit information between devices in a network leveraging quantum mechanical phenomena, such as entanglement. Entanglement is a quantum effect that entails a link between two or more particles that share a unified state even at a distance, so that measuring one instantly affects the other.

Researchers have pushed quantum chip design into a new era by simulating every physical detail before fabrication. Using a supercomputer with nearly 7,000 GPUs, they modeled how signals travel and interact inside an ultra-tiny chip. Unlike earlier “black box” approaches, this method captures real materials, layouts, and qubit behavior. The result is a powerful new way to spot problems early and build better quantum hardware faster.

Nature is the foremost international weekly scientific journal in the world and is the flagship journal for Nature Portfolio. It publishes the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature publishes landmark papers, award winning news, leading comment and expert opinion on important, topical scientific news and events that enable readers to share the latest discoveries in science and evolve the discussion amongst the global scientific community.

Nature is the foremost international weekly scientific journal in the world and is the flagship journal for Nature Portfolio. It publishes the finest peer-reviewed research in all fields of science and technology on the basis of its originality, importance, interdisciplinary interest, timeliness, accessibility, elegance and surprising conclusions. Nature publishes landmark papers, award winning news, leading comment and expert opinion on important, topical scientific news and events that enable readers to share the latest discoveries in science and evolve the discussion amongst the global scientific community.

Author(s): Ryan WilkinsonA new technique efficiently and reliably manipulates information held in a quantum memory. [Physics 19, s29] Published Tue Mar 17, 2026

Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard were recognized for their foundational work in quantum information science. The post Quantum Cryptography Pioneers Win Turing Award first appeared on Quanta Magazine

Developed by researchers and industry across the Quantum Australia network  Quantum technologies are beginning to influence the systems

Australian scientists have made a significant leap forward in energy storage technology with the world's first proof-of-concept quantum battery. Similar to conventional batteries, this quantum version charges, stores and discharges energy—and is the first to do so.

A new laser range-finding technique, inspired by quantum physics, that can measure distances under strong solar background has been demonstrated by researchers at the University of Bristol. The team has proved their hypothesis by testing out their new method on some of the university's most iconic buildings.

For the first time, a quantum radiation reaction in strong electromagnetic fields has been demonstrated experimentally by allowing electrons to collide with an extremely intense and powerful laser beam. The research findings provide insights needed for new quantum-mechanical computational models and clues to how the laws of physics operate near neutron stars or black holes.

Quantum catalysts are specialized resources that enable quantum state transformations previously thought impossible, holding promise for advancements in quantum computing and thermodynamics. A recent international study has identified the conditions under which these catalysts can operate reliably even amid environmental noise, marking a significant step toward practical quantum technologies.

For the first time, researchers have demonstrated that the properties of the perovskite family of materials can be used to create so-called quantum bits. The findings, published in the journal Nature Communications, pave the way for more affordable materials in future quantum computers.

The controlled generation of single photons is an essential element of numerous quantum technology applications, such as quantum networks and quantum computing. A research team has now demonstrated the successful application of the new SUPER (Swing-UP of the quantum EmitteR population) method. The approach facilitates the controlled generation of light particles (photons). Results of the study were recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

Ambition and international talent converge as Denmark scales up in quantum science The post International scientists head into the fast-lane of Denmark’s burgeoning quantum ecosystem appeared first on Physics World.

One physicist is on a mission to get scientists to look into Louis de Broglie’s pilot wave theory

Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have uncovered a new way to manipulate unusual magnetic states by exploiting “frustration” inside a crystal’s atomic structure. The team discovered a rare system where two different kinds of frustration—magnetic and electronic bond frustration—coexist and interact. By coupling these competing effects, researchers may be able to control exotic quantum states, potentially unlocking new ways to manipulate entangled spins for future quantum technologies.

Neutrinos are extremely lightweight and electrically neutral particles that rarely interact with ordinary matter. Due to these rare interactions, neutrinos can travel across space almost entirely unaffected, carrying information about highly energetic cosmological events, such as exploding stars or supermassive black holes.

Nanodiamond quantum sensors mounted on magnetic microbots achieve coherent spin control while moving freely through fluid, a first for untethered quantum sensing.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, working with international partners, have uncovered surprising behavior

Although the potential applications of quantum computing are widespread, a new feasibility study suggests quantum computers still face major hurdles in solving quantum chemistry problems. The study, published in Physical Review B, evaluates what criteria are needed for a quantum advantage in searching for the ground state energy of molecules. The researchers attempt this feat using two different algorithms with differing strengths and weaknesses.

For the first time, researchers in China have demonstrated how quantum dots can be engineered to consistently generate pairs of entangled photons. By carefully tailoring the photonic environment surrounding a single quantum dot, the team showed that it is possible to produce highly correlated photon pairs with remarkable efficiency, potentially opening new opportunities for emerging quantum technologies. The work, led by Zhiliang Yuan at the Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences, is reported in Nature Materials.

By placing single-atom-thick adlayers of p-block metals on commonly employed gold electrodes (d-block), a research team at National Taiwan University has successfully quantified the "interfacial hopping integral" between molecules and electrodes. This new model establishes a universal descriptor to predict conductance trends in single-molecule junctions, resolving long-standing variations in molecular measurements.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory are helping to pave a path for the

Author(s): Marric StephensApplying thermodynamic principles makes quantum machine-learning protocols more efficient. [Physics 19, s28] Published Thu Mar 12, 2026

The errors that quantum computers make are holding the technology back. But recent progress in quantum error correction has excited many researchers

Two popular quantum computing algorithms for problems in chemistry may have very limited use even as quantum hardware improves

A single flat metalens now handles both excitation and fluorescence collection for diamond quantum sensors, enabling nanoscale sensing in spaces too tight for conventional optics.

Spintronics—a technology that harnesses the electron's magnetic quantum states to carry information—could pave the way for a new generation of ultra-energy-efficient electronics. Yet a major challenge has been the ability to control these delicate quantum properties with sufficient precision for practical applications. By combining different quantum materials, researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have now taken a decisive step forward, achieving unprecedented control over spin phenomena. The advance opens the door to next-generation low-power data processing and memory technologies.

Researchers at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) have developed a new class of synthetic molecules that can capture sulfate, a widespread industrial and environmental contaminant, with unprecedented efficiency in water. The study demonstrates that entangled molecular structures, long considered mainly chemical curiosities, can be deliberately engineered for real-world applications, including water purification, chemical sensing, and environmental monitoring. The study is published in the journal Chem.

Over the past decades, energy engineers have developed increasingly advanced battery technologies that can store more energy, charge faster and maintain their performance for longer. In recent years, some researchers have also started exploring the potential of quantum batteries, devices that can store energy leveraging quantum mechanical effects.

When performing calculations in a quantum computer qubits are required. Qubits are the units that enable the computer

More than a century before quantum mechanics was born, Irish mathematician William Rowan Hamilton stumbled onto an idea that would quietly foreshadow one of the deepest truths in physics. While studying the paths of light rays and moving objects, Hamilton noticed a striking mathematical similarity between them and used it to develop a powerful new framework for mechanics. At the time, it seemed like a clever analogy—but decades later, as scientists uncovered the strange wave-particle nature of light and matter, Hamilton’s insight took on new meaning.

New research from Monash University and Phillip Island Nature Parks is using thermal and infrared drone technology to spot marine debris entanglements in Australian fur seals. Entanglement is an escalating threat to marine wildlife such as seals and fur seals with well-documented impacts including injury, restricted movement, and increased energy expenditure.

Using a tool to solve a protein's structure, for most researchers in the world of structural biology and computational chemistry, is not unlike using the Rosetta Stone to unlock the secrets of ancient Egyptian texts. Once a protein's structure has been discovered or defined, one can infer crucial information about its function or, in a diseased state, its dysfunction. While researchers have been pursuing the quest of solving protein structure for decades, advancing tools and computing technologies offer a new frontier for this work.

Quantum mechanical effects are known to be easily disrupted by disturbances from the surrounding environment, commonly referred to as noise. To minimize these disturbances, physicists often study these effects in small and carefully controlled systems, in which environmental noise can be minimized.

A study by scientists at Hunan University introduces a new hydrogen isotope separation method that leverages proton quantum tunneling to produce heavy water, overcoming the key physical limitation faced by current methods that have made the production process difficult and expensive for decades.

Researchers from Germany, Japan and India, led by scientists from DESY and the Universities of Kiel and Hamburg, have found a way to collectively make molecules on a flat surface rotate by exposing them to light using ultrafast light pulses from DESY's free-electron laser FLASH and a high-harmonic generation source. However, making those molecules dance is not the ultimate goal: this result could have an impact on next-generation quantum and energy materials for electronics, data storage and energy conversion.

Three years ago, in the waters of the Mediterranean Sea, the passage of an "ultra-energetic" cosmic neutrino was observed—the most energetic ever detected. The event drew international attention from the scientific community as well as from the media and the public, not least because the origin of this particle—whose energy exceeded that of previously observed neutrinos by more than an order of magnitude—is unknown.

The list of things that quantum features enable us to do just got a little longer The post Physicists identify unexpected quantum advantage in a permutation parity task appeared first on Physics World.

Researchers at Nicolaus Copernicus University (NCU) have developed a system that makes it possible to transfer leading laser spectroscopy technologies to the regime of cryogenic temperatures and to conduct studies of quantum theory for molecules with an unprecedented level of precision. The physicists constructed an exceptionally sensitive spectrometer based on an optical cavity whose operation the NCU team has extended into the so-called deep cryogenic regime. The instrument operates at temperatures down to 4 K (approximately −269 °C), close to absolute zero. Professor Piotr Wcislo, leader of the research group at the Institute of Physics at Nicolaus Copernicus University (NCU). Courtesy of NCU/Andrzej Romanski. ...

When it comes to quantum computing, which is rapidly accelerating, the focus is always on qubits. These delicate

Physicists in China have set the tightest constraint yet on a parameter known as axion-nucleon coupling The post Long-distance quantum sensor network advances the search for dark matter appeared first on Physics World.

Researchers in the US have demonstrated how quantum entanglement could be used to detect optical signals from astronomical sources at the single-photon level. Published in Nature, a team led by Pieter-Jan Stas at Harvard University showed how extremely weak light signals could be detected across a fiber link spanning more than 1.5 km—possibly paving the way for optical telescopes with unprecedented resolution.

Fluorescent proteins with a quantum upgrade could offer unprecedented views inside cells

Quantum technologies are anticipated to transform computing, communication and sensing by harnessing the unusual behavior of matter at

Whether you use a smartphone or a computer, pay for things with a credit card, or go to

Magnetic materials in a quantum spin liquid phase are of great interest in the pursuit of exotic state of matter and quantum computation. But in the quantum realm, things are not always what they seem. A study, published in Science Advances and co-led by Rice University's Pengcheng Dai, found that the material cerium magnesium hexalluminate (CeMgAl11O19) was not actually in a quantum spin liquid phase despite evidence suggesting it was.

Matin Durranireports from the Careers in Quantum event at the University of Bristol, UK The post Pathways to a career in quantum: what skills do you need? appeared first on Physics World.

Rydberg atoms are atoms with one or more outer electrons excited to very high energy levels, which interact very strongly with each other. These atoms are widely used to run quantum simulations and develop quantum technologies, as they can give rise to exotic and rare phases of matter.

Electrochemical approach counterintuitively relies on making water’s bonds stronger

An international team of scientists from IBM, The University of Manchester, Oxford University, ETH Zurich, EPFL and the University of Regensburg have created and characterized a molecule unlike any previously known—one whose electrons travel through its structure in a corkscrew-like pattern that fundamentally alters its chemical behavior. The work appears in Science.

A team at IBM Research has assembled a strange new ring-shaped molecule that bends around like a more complicated Möbius strip

Quantum key distribution (QKD) allows encrypted information to be distributed without being intercepted. In free-space QKD, however, fluctuations in atmospheric conditions can cause distortions in the propagating spatial modes, reducing the fidelity of the transmission and impairing the retrieval of the encoded information at the receiver end. To alleviate the effects of atmospheric turbulence on spatial mode transmission, a team at the University of Ottawa developed an all-optical self-correction scheme for turbulence resilience using stimulated parametric down-conversion (StimPDC)-based optical phase conjugation. Instead of relying on complex, expensive digital adaptive optics, the researchers used a nonlinear optical process...

Quantum computers work by applying quantum operations, such as quantum gates, to delicate quantum states. Ideally, quantum computers can solve complex equations at staggeringly fast speeds that vastly outpace regular computers. In real hardware, the operations of quantum computers often deviate from the ideal behavior because of device imperfections and unwanted noise from the environment. To build reliable quantum machines, researchers need a way to accurately determine what a quantum device is actually doing.

Researchers at the University of Innsbruck, together with partners from Sydney and Waterloo, have presented a new diagnostic method for quantum computers. It makes errors in individual quantum bits visible during logical calculation and evaluates them. The new method was demonstrated on an ion trap quantum processor in Innsbruck. It can be used to identify critical error sources—a key to developing more robust, fault-tolerant quantum processors.

Single-photon interferometry achieved over 1.5 km The post Quantum memories could help make long-baseline optical astronomy a reality appeared first on Physics World.

New advances in entanglement witnesses allow researchers to verify genuine multipartite entanglement even in noisy, high‑dimensional and computationally relevant quantum states The post Making multipartite entanglement easier to detect appeared first on Physics World.

A method for making quantum computers less error-prone could let them run complex programs such as simulations of materials more efficiently, thus making them more useful

One of the most striking features of quantum physics is that certain properties cannot be measured at the same time. Every measurement may inevitably affect the object's physical state being measured—and therefore also the outcome of any subsequent measurement. How fast something is moving, for example, can depend on whether its position was measured beforehand.

With reliable access to a smartphone, individuals can resolve foundational questions — such as where they are and what time it is — with ease and an unmatched level of precision and accuracy. This can largely be attributed to global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), which are typically referred to as GPS (global positioning system[s]). Many readers will be familiar with GPS and perhaps even GNSS. Although GPS is a U.S. system, it is analogous to other global satellite systems, including Russia’s GLONASS, China’s BeiDou, and Europe’s Galileo. GNSS has become ubiquitous and is essentially free to the user, enabled by specialized and low-cost microchips smaller than a fingernail. GNSS provides both...

Quantum networks, which will enable the future quantum internet, aim to interconnect quantum nodes, which serve as quantum processors, quantum memories, or quantum sensors, enabling capabilities beyond today’s classical internet. By distributing quantum states between remote nodes, quantum networks support functions such as provably secure communication, distributed quantum computing, and distributed quantum sensing. Facilitating these sophisticated functions builds on the concepts outlined in early vision papers, which describe the quantum internet as a new layer of global information infrastructure that complements, rather than replaces, the classical internet1. The effects of quantum networks extend beyond secure...

An international group of researchers have investigated the role of memory in quantum systems and dynamics. Their findings show that a quantum process can appear memoryless from one perspective while retaining memory from another. The discovery opens new research avenues into quantum systems and technologies.

The Midnight Ballet by Will Budgett is a treat for the eyes The post Shadow sculptures evoke quantum physics appeared first on Physics World.

Cables underneath New York City are teeming with entangled quantum particles of light thanks to Qunnect, a company that has spent a decade working on building an unhackable quantum internet

Scientists have pulled off a feat long considered out of reach: getting light to mimic the famous quantum Hall effect. In their experiment, photons drift sideways in perfectly defined, quantized steps—just like electrons do in powerful magnetic fields. Because these steps depend only on nature’s fundamental constants, they could become a new gold standard for ultra-precise measurements. The discovery also hints at tougher, more reliable quantum photonic technologies.

Quantum technologies, computers or other devices that operate leveraging quantum mechanical effects, rely on the precise control of light and matter. Over the past decades, quantum physicists and material scientists have been trying to identify systems that can reliably generate photons (i.e., light particles) and could thus be used to create quantum technologies.

Preserving quantum information is key to developing useful quantum computing systems. But interacting quantum systems are chaotic and follow laws of thermodynamics, eventually leading to information loss. Physicists have long known of a strange exception, called dynamical freezing, when quantum systems shaken at precisely tuned frequencies evade these laws. But how long can this phenomenon postpone thermodynamics?

Lockheed Martin and photonic quantum computing company Xanadu have established a research initiative to advance the foundational theory and emerging applications of Quantum Machine Learning (QML). The research will focus on generative models, machine learning techniques that learn from data to create new, realistic representations. Generative models underpin much of today's progress in AI, for example in large language models, but these are data-hungry energy-intensive techniques that struggle in applications where data is scarce. The newly launched collaboration will explore how quantum computers can exploit Fourier-based operations that are fundamentally inaccessible to classical machine learning methods, opening up new potential...

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Superconducting computing circuits were briefly heralded as the future of computing in the 1980s. Columnist Karmela Padavic-Callaghan visits a quantum chip foundry where one company is betting this technology’s second act will revolutionise quantum computers

Author(s): Sophia ChenA group of physicists are developing a quantum computer that’s entirely open source, from hardware to software [Physics 19, 24] Published Thu Feb 26, 2026

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In many quantum materials—materials with unusual electrical and magnetic properties driven by quantum mechanical effects—electrons can organize themselves into Landau levels. Landau levels are essentially quantized energy states that form when charged particles move in a magnetic field.

Monarch Quantum, a quantum photonics company developing technologies for quantum computing, quantum sensing, and quantum communications, will deliver quantum light engines for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) Quantum Gravity Gradiometer Pathfinder (QGGPf) mission. QGGPf is the first planned space deployment of a quantum gravity gradiometer. The planned neutral-atom quantum sensor is designed to measure minute variations in Earth's gravitational field from orbit. Space-based quantum gravity sensing enables ultra-precise Earth observation, subsurface mapping, climate monitoring, and next-generation inertial navigation systems that operate without GPS. Space-based quantum gravity gradiometers consist of multiple tightly...

Mechanism could pave the way for more robust quantum computation, but questions remain over scalability The post Read-out of Majorana qubits reveals their hidden nature appeared first on Physics World.

Researchers identified a new silicon qubit that emits telecom-band light without fragile hydrogen, potentially enabling scalable quantum devices using existing chip technology.

Quantum technologies are anticipated to transform computing, communication, and sensing by harnessing the unusual behavior of matter at the atomic scale. Translating quantum's promise into practical devices will require physical systems that have desirable quantum properties and can be easily manufactured. Silicon, the material behind today's computer chips, is highly attractive as a platform because it plays to the strengths of the trillion-dollar semiconductor industry that has already been built. Identifying quantum building blocks—qubits—in silicon is, therefore, an important frontier research area.

When you toss a coin, you put it into a higher-energy state until it falls back down again. It can then end up in one of two possible states: heads or tails. No matter which state the coin was in before, after the toss both outcomes are equally likely. A team at TU Wien has analyzed a quantum system that also has two equivalent ground states. By supplying energy through ion bombardment, this state can be changed.

New research shows that, off the U.S. West Coast, humpback whales face a higher risk of getting entangled in fishing equipment during years with lower availability of cool-water habitat, where the whales feed. Jarrod Santora of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S., and colleagues present these findings in PLOS Climate.