Takeshi Ohshima

Tuning a piano is delicate work. Strike one string, and its neighbors resonate. A silicon chip with crystal defects, being prepared for quantum computing, behaves similarly. In a silicon carbide (SiC) crystal, there are special spots — silicon vacancies. There, an electron behaves like a tiny magnet with four states.

A power transistor made of silicon carbide operates under voltages thousands of times higher than what comes out of a wall outlet. If the field inside it becomes uneven, the device burns out. Previously, this field was invisible: it is too strong for ordinary sensors, and the device must remain under voltage.

A spinning top, set in motion on a perfect surface, topples from the slightest tremor. Likewise, a quantum bit, created at a defect in a diamond, has its state destroyed by magnetic disorder from impurities and external interference.