A large-scale quantum computer could change the world, performing certain calculations in minutes that would take the largest supercomputer millions of years. The impact to applications such as cryptography and chemistry would be immense. Today’s quantum processors are limited to 10’s of entangled quantum bits (qubits). The media often indicates that commercially relevant systems are just around the corner. The reality, however, is that the technology is in an early stage of development. There are still many unanswered fundamental questions. Here we present a background on Quantum Computing with a focus on spin qubits in silicon. The quantum mechanical principles of superposition and entanglement are reviewed, and we discuss how these phenomena, (along with interference), can provide an exponential speed-up in compute power. We describe how spin qubits are made, initialized, manipulated, and measured. We provide an overview of the Quantum Computing program at Intel and a snapshot of the state of the industry.

Dr. Jeanette Roberts is a graduate of our own OSU Physics Department (Ph.D. 1995 on high-temperature superconductivity) and of Willamette University (B.S. 1988 in Physics). She has been an R&D Engineer at Intel Corporation for 25 years. She currently mangages Intel's Quantum Computing Lab. She has worked with Intel's most advanced tools, including extreme-UV lithography and pitch reduction.