Science Society Lecture - Room temperature single-molecule magnets for quantum computing: Serendipity or design?

David Izuogo
David Izuogu PhD student, Wolfson College
Date 01/02/2019 at 17.45 - 01/02/2019 at 19.15 Where Gatsby Room, Chancellor's Centre

This talk will look at the future of quantum computers and what is required to make quantum computers commercially available.

David Izuogo

Binary digital computers based on transistors have helped to keep up with Gordon Moore’s prediction of the doubling of transistor memory every year to meet up with future computational needs. This prediction can no longer keep up as the role of semiconductors in designing more efficient transistor-based integrated circuits reaches its limit with increasing computational demands. Quantum computers (QC) which require data to be encoded into qubits (Ψ=α|├ 0⟩+β|├ 1⟩), as opposed to bits (0 or 1), holds a revolutionary promise to increase storage density, processing speed and computational efficiency.

Simulating nature is very hard for classical computers. Artificial Intelligence and machine learning based on quantum computing with a quantum algorithm will sure revolutionise data analyses currently built on a complex and slow algorithm with much more efficiency and accuracy. QC will be able to solve certain problems much quicker than any binary digital computer with the best currently known algorithm by utilising superposition of states and inseparable quantum entanglement.

The holy grail of QC remains ultra-low temperature. The development of quantum computers at the moment is limited to extremely low temperatures where existing materials can show such quantum phenomena as qubits. There is the need, therefore, to find the best way to extend this behaviour to temperatures for practical applications. Of prime candidate in the development of quantum computers are single-molecule magnets (SMMs) which owe their magnetic properties to their molecular origin. My research seeks to develop or use multi-reference ab initio computational methods like the “complete active space self-consistence field,” the principles of the computational approach to elucidate, parametrise and model Hamiltonian to enhance lanthanide-based single-molecule magnets and drive this quantum phenomenon to room temperature for practical applications of QC. We will, therefore, be looking at the future of quantum computers and what is required to make quantum computers commercially available for humankind. Can we design materials that could produce qubits or hope on serendipity?

This talk is part of WOLFSON EXPLORES | Transformation |