Presidential Lectures are a series of free public colloquia spotlighting groundbreaking research across four themes: neuroscience and autism science, physics, biology, and mathematics and computer science. These curated, high-level scientific talks feature leading scientists and mathematicians and are designed to foster discussion and drive discovery within the New York City research community. We invite those interested in these topics to join us for this weekly lecture series.
This talk describes experimental progress toward controlling quantum mechanical coherence and entanglement in a solid-state environment. After describing what coherence and entanglement are, I will explain why using these attributes of the quantum world might be useful for information processing. I will then report from the experimental front lines, describing two approaches to this challenging problem: using electron spin as a quantum bit, and realizing nonabelian excitations in the fractional quantum Hall effect.
Suggested Reading:
Review on spins: http://marcuslab.harvard.edu/otherpapers/Hanson_RMP2007.pdf
Technical on spins: http://marcuslab.harvard.edu/papers/Barthel_InterlacedPRL2010.pdf
Nontechnical on spins: http://marcuslab.harvard.edu/papers/DiVincenzo_Science_Perspective.pdf