Quantum computers will soon become commonplace: scientists have entangled more than a dozen photons

To effectively use a quantum computer, it is necessary to perform computational operations

a larger number of specially trained(entangled) basic building blocks. A team of physicists from the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Garching demonstrated this task for the first time using photons emitted by a single atom. Discuss

Following the new technique, the researchers created up to 14entangled photons in an optical cavity, which can be purposefully and very efficiently prepared into certain quantum physical states. The new method could make it easier to create powerful and reliable quantum computers, as well as secure data transmission in the future.

"The trick to this experiment wasthat we used a single atom to emit photons and intertwine them in a very specific way,” – say the authors of the work. To do this, the researchers placed a rubidium atom in the center of the optical cavity – a kind of echo chamber for electromagnetic waves. Using laser radiation of a certain frequency, it was possible to precisely control the state of the atom. Using an additional control pulse, the researchers also specifically caused the emission of a photon that became entangled in the quantum state of the atom.

In between, the atom was manipulated in a certain way. Thus, it was possible to create a chain of 14 particles of light, which were entangled with each other by the rotation of the atom and brought into the desired state.