Andrew Shields Quotes (6 Quotes)

You have to pick things that people will like around Christmas.

For the first time, we can produce pulses of photons that are regular and reliable enough to be used as a clock in quantum computing, for example, from something we can make almost as easily as any other semiconductor.

The indium arsenide self-organizes into the dots, like raindrops on a car bonnet. We found that the key was producing the dots with a high degree of symmetry, and the physics of the materials does that for us.

The device is important for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's fabricated in a similar way to an ordinary semiconductor light emitter, and secondly it produces entangled photons on demand. The latter means we can trigger the generation of entangled photons with an external clock signal, essential for many applications in quantum computing.

There's no reason, in theory, why we can't replicate this effect at room temperature, and we've already seen emission at 1,300 nanometers where telecommunications lasers work. There are challenges still to be overcome, and I'd expect to see this in production in three to four years.

You learn about economics and mass produce little things to make a profit.