The biggest barrier to scaling up quantum computers might come down to a giant mess of wires. Quantum processors only work near absolute zero, inside sealed dilution refrigerators. As their control systems generate heat, engineers have to keep that hardware completely out of the cold zone. The result is a tangled bundle of cables that grows more crowded and impractical with every qbit added to the system.
To solve the problem, researchers at the University of Hong Kong looked where everyone else had stopped. They found a fix by exploiting the unique carrier dynamics inside everyday silicon carbide transistors.
Led by Professor Yuhao Zhang and PhD student Xin Yang, the team designed a microchip that operates directly at 10 millikelvin—a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. Instead of running on continuous electrical signals that bleed steady heat into the system, the chip fires energy-efficient pulses that mirror how biological neurons transmit data.
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