Quantum computers already exist, but on a disappointingly small scale. If they are ever to live up to their multiverse-delving potential, we will need a big one. That could become possible with a device that welds two existing technologies together, using the power of sound.
In one type of quantum computer, trapped ions store quantum information, or qubits. Making calculations means bringing these ions together, which in a big machine becomes inefficient. To get around that, David Kielpinski at Griffith University in Nathan, Queensland, Australia, and colleagues have proposed a scheme that incorporates ions with another approach to quantum computing, superconducting circuits. Each ion is held inside a capacitor, so it forms part of a
circuit.
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