NIST researchers have successfully entangled the vibrations of two mechanical drums, each made of about 1 trillion atoms. This is a significant breakthrough in quantum mechanics, as it demonstrates that quantum entanglement can occur in much larger objects than previously thought possible.
The drums, made of aluminum and suspended above sapphire mats, were entangled using microwave pulses. The researchers found that the drums’ vibrations were highly correlated, a phenomenon that is only possible through quantum entanglement.
This discovery could have important implications for quantum technologies, as highly entangled, massive quantum systems like this might serve as long-lived nodes of quantum networks. The high-efficiency radar measurements used in this work could be helpful in applications such as quantum teleportation and swapping entanglement between nodes of a quantum network.
The research is described in the May 7 issue of Science.
Source: https://www.nist.gov/news-events/news/2021/05/nist-team-directs-and-measures-quantum-drum-duet
Keywords: quantum, entanglement, mechanical, oscillator, quantum states
