Institute for Quantum Computing

Temperatures across Canada are expected to plunge this weekend due to a polar vortex weather system.

While frigid, the forecasted low of close to −30 °C in the Waterloo Region is balmy compared to temperatures some IQC researchers at the use in their work:
 
▫️ Superconducting materials in quantum computing and other experiments are fabricated and designed to run in a dilution refrigerator around 0.01 Kelvin, less than a degree above absolute zero (-273°C). That is twenty-four thousand times colder than we’re expecting this weekend and one hundred times colder than the depths of outer space.

▫️To understand how quantum particles interact they are cooled way down with lasers and studied at ultra-cold temperatures another one-hundred thousand times colder, as low as 100 nanoKelvin.
 
Stay warm and learn more about superconducting in quantum computing research!