This story is from November 27, 2017

IIT-Kharagpur research promises a quantum leap in futuristic tech

A research led by an IIT Kharagpur faculty member, which finds mention in acclaimed science journal ‘Nature Physics’, promises to increase manifold the speed and the storage capacity at which tomorrow’s devices — your laptops and your smartphones — work. The toolbox of the future will be infinitely faster, smaller and much more efficient.
IIT-Kharagpur research promises a quantum leap in futuristic tech
File Photo
KOLKATA: A research led by an IIT Kharagpur faculty member, which finds mention in acclaimed science journal ‘Nature Physics’, promises to increase manifold the speed and the storage capacity at which tomorrow’s devices — your laptops and your smartphones — work. The toolbox of the future will be infinitely faster, smaller and much more efficient.
Sajal Dhara and his team have proved that next-generation devices like quantum computers can be designed even without the use of electrons.
Since the artificially created new particle is lighter than the mass of an electron by 0.0001 times, for a layman this will translate into simple solutions to the most intricate problems and lightning fast applications.
“Just imagine a caricature version of tiny fireflies being laws of physics but different from our classical world,” Dhara explained. “We have discovered new insights on the mass of these intriguing particles. The new understanding is expected to inspire a giant leap towards futuristic technology development. Quantum computation is just one application, there are limitless possibilities,” he added.
The October issue of ‘Nature Physics’ gives a lowdown on Sajal Dhara’s discovery, which is a collaborative work with the University of Rochester and the International Centre of Theoretical Sciences (ICTS), Bangalore. The other collaborators with Dhara are, C Chakraborty, KM Goodfellow, L Qiu, TA O’Loughlin, GW Wicks and AN Vamivakas, all from University of Rochester and Subhro Bhattacharjee from ICTS, TIFR.
A physics graduate from Presidency College, who did his masters from IIT Kharagpur, PhD from TIFR and post-doctoral from Pennsylvania and Rochester universities, Dhara joined as a faculty at IIT Kharagpur in October 2016. Too excited at being able to reach “somewhere” in his “quest for light”, Dhara says he will spend the next few years perfecting the polariton for quantum devices.
“Light is an electromagnetic wave but it also shows particle properties with zero mass. Matter on the other hand are made of atoms that have a certain mass. We have artificially created a combined particle state that is made of half-light and half-matter, or polaritons,” Dhara said.
End of Article
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA