Instead of puddle jumping during a rainy Midwestern spring, physics researchers at Indiana"s Purdue University have been doing some puddle linking -- tying together pools of a few dozen electrons sandwiched inside a semiconductor. The electron pools -- known as "quantum dots" -- promise a new type of ultra-small transistor that could outperform conventional transistors while occupying far less space.
Qubits Worth
Quantum-scale computer bits -- qubits -- can use the up and down spin states of electrons as substitutes for the zeroes and ones of the binary code. These electron spin states -- tantamount to right- and left-handed rotations about a central axis -- have strange properties unique to their extremely small size. Instead of being either zero or one, a quantum Latest News about quantum binary code would allow an unusual third state -- a superposition of both zero and one.