Hiroki Takahashi

A bathroom mirror lasts for years, even though water and steam hit it every day. But a mirror designed to catch a single barium ion gets damaged by its own light — in complete darkness and deep vacuum. In an ion trap, mirrors form a cavity: light bounces between them, enhancing the interaction with the ion.

A quantum computer measures a molecule's energy much like an old tape measure that only has markings every meter. If the actual length of a table is 2.37 meters, the tape shows “two and a bit,” and you can't do better. Physicists call this resolution: the step of the grid, finer than which you cannot go. The authors of the new work turn this flaw into an advantage.