The first edition of a new scientific journal focusing on the revolutionary field of quantum information research, edited by Michelle Simmons, has been launched by Nature Publishing Group and UNSW.
The first edition of a new scientific journal focusing on the revolutionary field of quantum information research has been launched by Nature Publishing Group (NPG) and UNSW.
The journal, npj Quantum Information, is the first in a series of open access, online-only Nature Partner Journals (NPJs) to be based in Australia. The articles, which will appear online this evening, are all free to read and can be shared easily. The journal covers a wide range of topics from quantum computing to quantum communications and quantum cryptography.
Journal Editor-in-Chief UNSW Scientia Professor Michelle Simmons says scientists’ ability to control the quantum world is rapidly increasing, leading to a deeper understanding of the universe as well as potentially transformative new technologies for transmitting and processing information.
“The 21st century will be the quantum information century. Our new journal, npj Quantum Information, aims to publish the most exciting, cutting edge research findings in this rapidly evolving field,” says Professor Simmons, Director of the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology at UNSW.
“It will capture not only fundamental developments in quantum physics, but also the difficult challenges in implementing these findings so we can develop practical new devices and systems. The field of quantum information is already attracting interest from commercial companies, including Microsoft, Google and Intel, due to the transformational potential of the technology.
“The journal provides a high quality forum for researchers from a wide range of disciplines to present their latest developments and to promote new research capabilities,” says Professor Simmons.
Recent scientific advances have made it possible to manipulate matter at the level of single atoms or photons of light. Technologies with great promise include quantum cryptography, in which information is sent in quantum states, making its transmission completely secure from eavesdropping; and quantum computing, which exploits the unusual quantum properties of single spins, flux and photons to promise a dramatic speed-up in computational power.
For the inaugural content release of npj Quantum Information, Professor Simmons, NPG, and a highly renowned international editorial board selected six articles: an editorial, two review papers and three original research articles.
They include a review article by a team from Microsoft on the international effort to build quantum information processing devices, a review from an engineer’s perspective on the challenges of scaling up quantum platforms, an editorial that provides a sobering look at the importance of metrology of qubit errors and a research paper on hybrid qubits that can operate in a regime that is insensitive to charge noise.
“I am delighted to present the first articles, which provide a snapshot of the breadth of the journal,” says Professor Simmons. “For future content, I encourage people to submit both original articles and reviews to our stringently peer-reviewed platform.”
npj Quantum Information is the first of three NPJs to be based in Australia, with more expected to come.
npj Science of Learning, with the Queensland Brain Institute at the University of Queensland and Editor-in-Chief Professor Pankaj Shah, is expected to publish its first articles in early 2016. npj Regenerative Medicine, with Monash University, the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute and Editor-in-Chief Professor Nadia Rosenthal, is expected to publish its first articles in mid-2016.
All articles in all NPJs are published open access under a Creative Commons license and are free for all to read.
Professor Simmons is a world leader in the field of quantum computing and heads a team of more than 180 researchers across Australia. She has published more than 350 papers in journals including Nature, Nature Nanotechnology, Nature Physics and Nature Materials. In 2012, her team developed the world’s smallest transistor, marking a technological achievement 10 years ahead of industry predictions. Her laboratory is the only one in the world able to make atomically precise devices in silicon, including the thinnest conducting wires only 4 atoms wide.
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The content launch for npj Quantum Information will occur on 27 October at 19:30 AEDT.
Inaugural npj Quantum Information articles:
Majorana Zero Modes and Topological Quantum Computation – Review Article Chetan Nayak, Sankar Das Sarma, Michael Freedman
Improving the gate fidelity of capacitively coupled spin qubits – Article Xin Wang, Edwin Barnes, Sankar Das Sarma
High fidelity resonant gating of a silicon based quantum dot hybrid qubit – Article Mark Eriksson, Dohun Kim, Dan Ward, C Simmons, Don Savage, M Lagally, Mark Friesen, Susan Coppersmith
Qubit metrology for building a fault-tolerant quantum computer – Editorial John Martinis
Cellular-automaton decoders for topological quantum memories – Article Jens Eisert, Michael Herold, Michael Kastoryano, Earl Campbell
Engineering the Quantum-Classical Interface of Solid-State Qubits – Review Article David Reilly