Coherence

John Bartholomew talks about quantum memories and the challenges of keeping quantum information "coherent".
John Bartholomew talks about quantum memories and the challenges of keeping quantum information "coherent".

John explores the limit of how long quantum information can be stored - a "quantum memory" is an important part of quantum information technologies. He was part of a team that set the record for this "coherence time" of about 6 hours (using super-cold glowing crystals). This might seem short compared to classical hard drives,  but its excitingly long enough to imagine building a quantum sneaker-net. In fact this idea of coherence gets at the boundary between quantum and classical! John shares his own journey from a small country town to a commute within view of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and the super-fridges from Episode 1 make a reappearance.

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