Nobel Prize in Physics for quantum computers research

Nobel Prize in Physics for quantum computers research

 

 

The 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics goes to research on quantum mechanics, which is believed will lead to the advent of quantum computers. The laureates are Frenchman Alain Aspect, American John F. Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger. The three scientists build on the work of John Stewart Bell, who made it possible to subject quantum mechanics to experiments in the 1960s.

 

Starting in the 1970s, the three laureates each performed experiments that indeed confirmed the ideas of quantum mechanics. For example, they shot two entangled photons, each in a different direction. The results showed that the information on both sides hung together.

 

In the late 1990s, Zeilinger worked on the ‘teleportation’ of information: sending ‘data’ through a quantum network of entangled particles. The extraordinary thing is that it happens without knowing the exact information and nothing gets lost either. The Nobel Prize Committee predicts a revolution in computing and wants to honour the scientists who have made this revolution possible.

 

QuTech

At TU Delft, Prof. Ronald Hanson’s team at QuTech is further building on Zeilinger’s work. In 2015 for instance, they entangled two electrons more than a kilometre away. Every year since then, they have taken another step towards an unbreakable quantum net based on entanglement.

 

The Volkskrant newspaper expressed disappointment that Hanson was not awarded the Nobel Prize ‘because his name had been floating around for years as a contender.’ But because the Nobel Prize rules allow only three winners, Hanson grabbed next to the prize, according to the Volkskrant.

Hanson responded rather level-headedly in the same article. ‘I am sincerely just happy. If you had to write down ten people from this field who would have been eligible for this award for this subject, I think I would indeed be among them,’ he says. ‘But I really think these three winners are a much more logical choice.’

 

Want to know more? Go to the Nobel Prize organisation’s press release.