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INTERVIEW

I’ll make quantum

reign supreme

Quantum computers have phenomenal potential, and

Michelle Simmons is making it real, says Phil Dooley

he describes it as “an eye opener” – What did it mean to you to win Australian
the childhood moment when of the Year as an immigrant?
SMichelle Simmons’s father casually To be recognised by my adopted country says
underestimated her ability at chess. She won much more about Australia than it does about
the game in question regardless, but the me. To celebrate someone in this way, who
moment stung. That someone so close to her wasn’t born here, speaks to the forward-
didn’t appreciate what she was capable of looking and positive outlook of the Australian
became a motivating force. psyche. My friends in the UK were amazed.
These days, no one is underestimating
Simmons. Her drive and determination led What inspired your move to Australia?
the English-born quantum physicist to win In 1998, I was working at the University of NIC WALKER/FAIRFAX
the Australian of the Year award in 2018, Cambridge on quantum materials made from
highlighting the impact made by the scientist a compound called gallium arsenide, which
sometimes dubbed the “quantum queen”. was really unpredictable. Then I saw a Nature
The quantum computers that Simmons paper by Bruce Kane at UNSW that said if an understanding is especially rewarding
works on hold the promise of solving you were building a quantum computer, if I can make something practically useful.
problems that would leave conventional silicon would be the best material. I looked A quantum computer will allow us to see
computers whirring impotently until the at Bruce’s idea and thought, if I was going the world in a different way and solve a
heat death of the universe. In an industry rife build something, that’s the way I would do it. host of problems, including some we’re not
with speculation and misinformation, she Technologically it was completely beyond even aware of yet. Our society is dependent
has built a team at the University of New the capability of the time, but the Australian on so many complex systems, the more
South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney that has hit team really decided, right, we’re going to try powerful the computing power we can
goal after technological goal along the road to to build that. marshal, the better.
delivering silicon-based quantum computers. It was by far the best move I ever made.
Her team made headlines when it built A lot of people internationally said “yeah, that’s How do you go about making such a
a transistor made of a single atom of great but none of that has been done before – precise device?
phosphorus, embedded in silicon. The good luck to you”. I enjoyed that, because a lot Phosphorus is next to silicon in the periodic
phosphorus acts as a qubit, the unit of quantum of the challenges were technological ones that table so, using a scanning tunnelling electron
computation. Unlike digital bits, which exist I thought were likely to work out. microscope in an ultra-high vacuum, you
only as 0s or 1s, qubits can be both at once. After can take a silicon atom out of a crystal and
recently adding a second phosphorus qubit, What drew you to quantum computers? put a phosphorus atom back in its place.
Simmons’s team showed that they affected Like many scientists, I seek universal The phosphorus sits in the same site that
each other – a step towards quantum knowledge that will bring us a better the silicon would have been, but it has an
entanglement, the key to giving quantum understanding of the world. But I am additional electron. We are using the spin
computers their phenomenal power. drawn to concrete things. Building such states of that extra electron as the qubit.

42 | NewScientist | 27 October 2018