Scientists have created a programmable optical chip

The microprocessor in the computer is the only multi-purpose chip that has radically changed the lives of people, allowing them to use one machine for surfing the web, checking mail and monitoring finances.

Researchers from the University of Bristol and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone were able to do the same for the quantum world by developing an optical chip that can perform an infinite number of operations on photons.

A fully programmable optical chip allows for the implementation of many modern quantum experiments, as well as future, non-existent protocols, and, in the opinion of its authors, opens up a new era in the research of quantum technologies.

In the past, scientists understood nature through the behavior of light. Now scientists are trying to understand nature at the quantum level, but the main barrier in testing quantum theories is the time and resources needed to organize such experiments.
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“Now anyone can conduct their own experiments with photons, as with any program on a computer. He no longer needs to convince the physicist to spend many months on the painstaking organization and conduct of a new experiment, ”said the project leader, Dr. Anthony Laing.

The team demonstrated the unique capabilities of the chip by reprogramming it so that it was possible to quickly perform several different experiments, each of which had previously occupied scientists for several months of work.

“After the code for each chain was written, the chip was reprogrammed in seconds, and its switching to a new experiment was done in milliseconds,” said one of the Bristol researchers, Jacques Carolan. “We completed the annual program of experiments in a few hours, having obtained scientific results, which we had no idea before.”

The device was made possible by combining scientists with Nippon Telegraph and Telephone, one of the world's largest telecommunications companies.

Professor Jeremy Bryan, director of the Center for Quantum Photonics at the University of Bristol, said: “Over the past decade, we have created an ecosystem for photon quantum technologies, allowing the best minds of quantum informatics to team up with experts in the telecommunications industry. This is a model that should be encouraged. ”

The University of Bristol has pioneered the creation of the Quantum in the Cloud cloud service, which makes the quantum processor accessible to a wide audience, and plans to supplement it with other similar processors so that anyone can discover the quantum world for themselves.