Molecular quantum bits hold great promise for advancing more powerful and secure quantum technologies, particularly in sectors like communications and energy. However, qubits find it difficult to exploit their full potential in conventional hardware. Chemists like Joris van Slageren are researching how to turn qubits into robust and reliable information carriers. The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation has named Joris van Slageren a Henriette Herz Scout in recognition of his expertise in molecular quantum technology and his dedication to supporting early-career researchers.

A quantum computer the size of a smartphone – researchers at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) are investigating how this could become reality. Physicist Prof. Dr. Vojislav Krstić and his team of researchers are focusing on developing quantum bits (Qubits) that work on the basis of topological isolators, a class of materials that have increasingly become the focus of research over recent years thanks to their unusual properties. The pioneering project has now received funding of over 900,000 euros.

The sensor solutions provider HENSOLDT has been awarded a contract by the DLR Quantum Computing Initiative (DLR QCI) for the QUA-SAR research project. The research project aims to optimise complex radar remote sensing scenarios. In the research project, HENSOLDT is working together with the Microwaves and Radar Institute of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the high-tech start-up Tensor AI Solutions GmbH.

In a new study, researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics under the lead of Timon Hilker demonstrated evidence of stripe formation, i.e. extended structures in the density pattern, in a cold-atom Fermi-Hubbard system. By using a quantum gas microscope and a special mixed-dimensional geometry, they were able to observe unique higher-order correlations in spin and charge densities related to those seen in some high-temperature superconducting materials. These findings, which shed light on a key phenomenon in condensed matter physics, suggest that individual stripe structures could form at higher temperatures than the much-debated stripe phase. This experiment represents a major step forward in using quantum simulators to explore the most fundamental properties of materials. The work is published this week in Nature.

The rare-earth metal erbium could play a key role in future quantum networks: researchers from MPQ and TU Munich succeeded in spectrally resolving and individually controlling up to 360 erbium ions.

An international team of scientists headed by Dr. Lukas Bruder, junior research group leader at the Institute of Physics, University of Freiburg, has succeeded in producing and directly controlling hybrid electron-photon quantum states in helium atoms. To this end, they generated specially prepared, highly intense extreme ultraviolet light pulses using the FERMI free electron laser in Trieste, Italy. The researchers achieved control of the hybrid quantum states using a new laser pulse-shaping technique. Their results have been published in the journal Nature.

The physicist typically uses high-performance computers to run JUQCS. This is software that can be used to simulate universal quantum computers. These machines use the exotic rules of the quantum world to solve specific tasks faster than a supercomputer – at least in theory.

The magnetic moment of the muon is an important precision parameter for putting the Standard Model of particle physics to the test. After years of work, the research group led by Professor Hartmut Wittig of the PRISMA+ Cluster of Excellence at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has calculated this quantity using the so-called lattice quantum chromodynamics method (lattice QCD method). Their result, which was recently published, agrees with the latest experimental measurements, in contrast to earlier theoretical calculations. After the experimental measurements had been pushed to ever higher precision in recent years, attention had increasingly turned to the theoretical prediction and the central question of whether it deviates significantly from the experimental results and thus provides evidence for the existence of new physics beyond the Standard Model.

The quantum Hall effect, a fundamental effect in quantum mechanics, not only generates an electric but also a magnetic current. It arises from the motion of electrons on an orbit around the nuclei of atoms. This has been demonstrated by the calculations of a team from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) which were published in the journal "Physical Review Letters". These results can potentially be used to develop new types of inexpensive and energy-efficient devices. Electricity flows through all types of electronic devices, be it mobile phones or computers. However, this generates heat, which means that energy is lost. It also means that conventional computer chips cannot be infinitely scaled down. In the field of spin-orbitronics, researchers are looking for alternatives for storing and processing information without the loss of energy. The basic idea is to utilise not only an electron’s charge, but also its spin and orbital moment when processing information. Spin is the intrinsic angular momentum of an electron, and the orbital moment arises from the motion of the electrons around atomic nuclei. "Combining both effects would allow us to design new devices that are more powerful and efficient," says physicist Professor Ingrid Mertig at MLU.

Recently, researchers from at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPIK) in Heidelberg tackled a tricky piece of the QED puzzle. They focused on a phenomenon known as the electron self-energy, which occurs when an electron interacts with the quantum vacuum — the invisible sea of energy that pervades the whole universe.