For the first time, an international team led by engineers at Caltech has developed a computer chip with nanoscale optical quantum memory.
Quantum memory stores information in a similar fashion to the way traditional computer memory does, but on individual quantum particles -- in this case, photons of light. This allows it to take advantage of the peculiar features of quantum mechanics (such as superposition, in which a quantum element can exist in two distinct states simultaneously) to store data more efficiently and securely.
