In our age of continuous technological advancement, it is often felt that computing is constantly evolving and improving. Even if it is In terms of memory capacity or computing speed, Computers seem to have no limits. The laws of quantum physics, however, do not agree.

Inn An article published in the journal Nature The survey was conducted on March 25, 2022, by Austrian researchers at the University of Vienna (TU Wien) and German scientists at the Max-Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Munich, Grass Technical University (TU Graz). The upper limit of computer speed.

As explained New Atlas, The ultimate speed of computer chips is one million GHz. Or 100,000 times faster than the capacity of existing transistors in quantum computers.

But if they succeed in breaking this theoretical boundary of possibility thanks to mathematics, researchers are not entirely sure that human technology will one day be able to achieve this incredible speed.

Technically, there are two ways to speed up computers: The first is to reduce the size of computer components. The idea? Reduce the distance that data transmission signals must travel between point A and point B.

The second is to speed up the signals sent by the transistors by removing obstacles that may slow down the current. In this investigation, light plays an important role. Since nothing travels faster than light, systems that use light to control electricity are known Opto ElectronicsAre the fastest tools.

There was also light

To find out their results, a team of Austrian and German physicists conducted experiments. To move the electrons of the material to a higher energy level and to allow them to move freely, they applied an ultra-short laser pulse to a semiconductor.

In the second step, they created a slightly longer second laser pulse to send these electrons back in a certain direction, producing an artificially fast electric current.

After several attempts, scientists have succeeded in estimating the absolute range of speed that can be reached by optoelectronic systems using increasingly small laser pulses: one petahertz or one million GHz, a unit of frequency. Note: In the case of computer speed, research uses the term “high-frequency” to mean “speed”.

If you are curious and interested in Applied Physics with Irish pronunciation, Professor Phil Moriarty of the University of Nottingham Computerphile explains the limitations of the technology in the YouTube channel. For less specialists, we leave you A very good video recap To understand all (finally) about these stories of quantum computers …