A fresh take on quantum computing recently earned Physics Ph.D. student Eric Switzer an industry prize at an annual symposium.
Switzer, advised by Pegasus Professor and UCF Trustee Chair Professor Talat S. Rahman, Ph.D., walked away with the IBM-Zerner Graduate Student Award at the Sanibel Symposium based on a poster he presented exploring the use of resonances in small molecule-based magnets, which could be used in the next generation of quantum computers.
Unlike traditional computers that rely on binary 1s and 0s, quantum computers have a far greater range of options. Switzer’s research demonstrated the theoretical possibility of using the resonance, which he and his collaborators call a “DJ resonance”, to enable and control entanglement in three-spin particle systems.
The Sanibel Symposium, now in its 61st year, promotes collaboration and communication among experts in the fields of quantum chemistry and many-body quantum mechanics in molecular and materials physics.
Switzer is excited to play a part in creating bigger and better quantum computers.
“We’re going to continue this research and explore how to take this from theoretical to physical,” he said.
This work is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy through an Energy Frontier Research Center grant awarded to the University of Florida; Rahman is one of the principal investigators on the project.
