World's smallest diamond ring detects photons
BEIJING, March 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Australian scientists have created the world's smallest diamond ring, not to grace the finger of a fiancee, but to help researchers who are developing quantum information processing.
The ring -- 5 microns in diameter and 300 nanometers thick --is a component in a device for producing and detecting single photons, or particles of light.
Set in different states, photons can carry information. In ordinary digital computers, information is stored in bits, which can have a value of either "1" or "0" (just as a light switch can only be "on" or "off"). The order of 1's and 0's indicates a certain piece of information.
But these photons, called qubits, can hold a value of 1 and 0 at the same time, which could expand the possibilities for information storage.
The new development, announced at the March meeting of the American Physical Society in New Orleans, was made by scientists at the University of Melbourne in Australia.
