Engaging diamonds in the quantum age

Events — By Jennifer Thomas on December 22, 2011 11:07 am

Professor David Awschalom will be presenting a Miegunyah Public Lecture for the Melbourne Materials Institute, entitled “Engaging diamonds in the quantum age” on Wednesday 18^th January 2012, 6.30 – 7.30 pm in the Hercus Theatre at the University of Melbourne. Register your attendance.

This public lecture will focus on the remarkable development of semiconductor spintronics; an area of research that reaches beyond today’s classical electronics. Spintronics allows us to exploit the quantum properties of electrons in semiconductors. Spin control may serve as the basis for manipulating and storing information in future quantum technologies. Research at the frontiers of this field include efforts to generate, manipulate, and store spin states at the atomic scale. Machines composed of these ‘qubits’ would provide unparalleled computing power enabling us to model the human brain, to design new drugs for targeted therapy, and to address fundamental science questions such as quantum gravity. In addition to advanced computational power, quantum machines would enable arbitrarily large data storage.

Professor David Awschalom is the Peter J. Clarke Professor of Physics, Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Director of the California NanoSystems Institute and the Center for Spintronics and Quantum Computation. He is a pioneer in the field of semiconductor spintronics, exploring the quantum mechanical behaviour of charges and spins in nanostructures and the foundations of solid-state quantum information processing.

For a preview of Professor Awschalom’s work watch the video, “David Awschalom – Spintronics: Abandoning Perfection for the Quantum Age” on you tube.

Details and bookings for the Miegunyah Lecture can be made online.

Enquiries to Annabelle Pontvianne or (03) 9035 3828

Tags: electrical and electronic engineering, MSE, research