From Vision to Reality: Quantum Information

Peter Zoller, an Innsbruck native, works at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information part of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. He is also Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Innsbruck. He is a scientific leader in quantum physics and a pioneer in quantum computing research. He has received many highly prestigious international awards and he is a frequent guest lecturer at top research centers around the world.
Already in the mid-1990s, he and his colleague Ignacio Cirac proposed a concept to build a quantum computer and in recent years many aspects of the quantum computer have been implemented. The approach is based on the interaction between laser light and cold atoms. Initially it was just a vision.
At over 60 years of age, Zoller’s curiosity is as strong as ever and he keeps venturing into other fields of physics. For example, he has linked quantum physics with solid-state physics and, recently, also particle physics. This has resulted in proposals for concepts to realize quantum simulators, which are to tackle problems that have yet to be solved. For example, they may lead to a better understanding of the big bang.
Today, the technologies that scientists have at their disposal are a lot more sophisticated than in the 1990s. Experimental physicists, for example Zoller’s colleague Rainer Blatt, are now able to create prototypes based on the ideas and concepts of the theorists. Zoller is convinced that quantum physics will soon be part of our everyday life:
The first quantum revolution led to the production of transistors, lasers and other technologies now common in our everyday life. Zoller thinks that the current second quantum revolution will affect all of us in just a few decades.
More information:
www.iqopi.at
www.uibk.ac.at/th-physik/qo/