Quantum computing can revolutionize the paradigm in many industries, such as healthcare, energy safe-keepers, emerging technologies, and logistic systems. This technology’s main apparatus is qubits. However, to build a practical quantum computer, the need to cool these qubits to near absolute zero is an obstacle that needs to be overcome.
Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, and the University of Maryland, USA, have made a major breakthrough. They have developed a new type of refrigerator to autonomously cool superconducting qubits to record low temperatures.
For quantum computers to perform smoothly, qubits must be maintained at ultra-cold temperatures near absolute zero (-273.15°C or 0 Kelvin). Qubits can enter their low-energy state at such low temperatures, which is essential for quantum calculations.
Existing cooling systems, known as dilution refrigerators, can only cool qubits to around 50 millikelvins, just above absolute zero. Further cooling is a significant challenge because it is impossible to reach absolute zero according to the laws of thermodynamics.
The quantum refrigerator that cools superconducting qubits down to a historical 22 millikelvin to solve this challenge. This device has been extensively explained to enhance the overall performance of the quantum computer significantly.
The quantum refrigerator will operate based on interactions between a superconducting qubit and a thermal environment. In such a system, one qubit absorbs energy from the environment to run the refrigerator, which transfers energy to the second, the cold qubit, which loses the heat to a cold climate. Thus, the refrigeration process would be autonomous after its initiation since it does not require any external control at all.
“The refrigerator is powered by heat from the environment and utilizes quantum interactions to cool the target qubit,” explained Aamir Ali, lead author and research specialist at Ch
