Tag Archives: Simon Rips

Carbon nanotubes, good vibrations, and quantum computing

Apparently carbon nanotubes can store information within their vibrations and this could have implications for quantum computing, from the Mar. 21, 2013 news release on EurekAlert,

A carbon nanotube that is clamped at both ends can be excited to oscillate. Like a guitar string, it vibrates for an amazingly long time. “One would expect that such a system would be strongly damped, and that the vibration would subside quickly,” says Simon Rips, first author of the publication. “In fact, the string vibrates more than a million times. The information is thus retained up to one second. That is long enough to work with.”

Since such a string oscillates among many physically equivalent states, the physicists resorted to a trick: an electric field in the vicinity of the nanotube ensures that two of these states can be selectively addressed. The information can then be written and read optoelectronically. “Our concept is based on available technology,” says Michael Hartmann, head of the Emmy Noether research group Quantum Optics and Quantum Dynamics at the TU Muenchen. “It could take us a step closer to the realization of a quantum computer.”

The research paper can be found here,

Quantum Information Processing with Nanomechanical Qubits
Simon Rips and Michael J. Hartmann,
Physical Review Letters, 110, 120503 (2013) DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.110.120503
Link: http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v110/i12/e120503

The paper is behind a paywall.

There are two Good Vibrations songs on YouTube, one by the Beach Boys and one by Marky Mark. I decided to go with this Beach Boys version in part due to its technical description at http://youtu.be/NwrKKbaClME,

FIRST TRUE STEREO version with lead vocals properly placed in the mix. I also restored the original full length of the bridge that was edited out of the released version. An official true stereo mix of the vocal version was not made back in 1967. While there are other “stereo” versions posted, for the most part they are “fake” or poor stereo versions. I tried to make the best judicious decision on sound quality, stereo imaging and mastering while maintaining TRUE STEREO integrity given the source parts available. I hope you enjoy it!

The video,