The ideas behind building a quantum computer and the power of such a device will be explored July 13 in a lecture at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Charles Marcus, scientific director of Harvard University's Center of Imaging and Mesoscale Structures and physics professor, will present the free public lecture "Quantum Physics and Computation" at 7 p.m. in Duane Physics room G1B30.
Marcus will discuss the possibility of building a quantum computer and the technological advancements that could be expected from it. He also will talk about his research.
Marcus' research group builds and measures electronic devices smaller than a millionth of a meter and investigates quantum mechanical phenomena that arise in these transistor-like devices.
The lecture is part of the sixth annual Boulder Summer School for Condensed Matter and Material Physics, hosted by CU-Boulder and supported by a $1.36 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
This year's school focuses on mesoscopic physics, which is the study of primarily electrical properties of materials that range in size between the macroscopic -- visible to the naked eye -- and the microscopic -- individual atoms or molecules. Researchers in the field study the fundamental physical problems that accompany nanoelectronic engineering.
The summer school's goal is to enable students to work at the frontiers of science and technology by exposing them to a range of concepts, techniques and applications much broader than any single graduate program or postdoctoral apprenticeship can provide, according to Leo Radzihovsky, a CU-Boulder physics professor. Radzihovsky co-founded the school with Steven Girvin of Yale University, Matthew Fisher of the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara and Andy Millis of Columbia University.
For more information about the July 13 lecture call (303) 492-1515.