Germanium is already utilized in standard computer chips
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Superconductors made from germanium, a material traditionally used for computer chips, have the potential to revolutionize quantum computing by enhancing reliability and performance in the future.
Superconductors are materials that enable electricity to flow without resistance, making them ideal for various electrical applications, particularly in maintaining quantum coherence—essential for effective quantum computing.
Nonetheless, most superconductors have been specialized materials that are challenging to incorporate into computer chips. Peter Jacobson and his team at the University of Queensland, Australia, successfully developed a superconductor using germanium, a material already prevalent in the computing sector.
The researchers synthesized the superconductor by introducing gallium into a germanium film through a process called doping. Previous experiments in this area found instability in the resulting combination. To overcome this, the team utilized X-rays to infuse additional gallium into the material, achieving a stable and uniform structure.
However, similar to other known superconductors, this novel material requires cooling to a frigid 3.5 Kelvin (-270°C/-453°F) to function.
David Cardwell, a professor at the University of Cambridge, notes that while superconductors demand extremely low temperatures, making them less suitable for consumer devices, they could be ideally suited for quantum computing, which also necessitates supercooling.
“This could significantly impact quantum technology,” says Cardwell. “We’re already in a very cold environment, so this opens up a new level of functionality. I believe this is a clear starting point.”
Jacobson highlighted that previous attempts to stack superconductors atop semiconductors—critical components in computing—resulted in defects within their crystal structure, posing challenges for practical applications. “Disorder in quantum technology acts as a detrimental effect,” he states. “It absorbs the signal.”
In contrast, this innovative material enables the stacking of layers containing gallium-doped germanium and silicon while maintaining a uniform crystal structure, potentially paving the way for chips that combine the advantageous features of both semiconductors and superconductors.
Feedback is the latest science and technology news of new scientists, the sidelines of the latest science and technology news. You can email Feedback@newscientist.com to send items you believe readers can be fascinated by feedback.
Whales are not Wales
Feedback is a science journalist of more years than we remember, and as a result we have come across a significant share of the odd units of measurement. The human mind wrestles with very large and very small things, so as a writer, it’s fascinating to get you to say that the huge iceberg has an area x times the size of Wales, the mountains are at the height of Burj Khalifa, or the bad books contain Z plot holes. Fourth Wing.
In this spirit, Christopher Dionne CNN Article About Blue Ghost Lunar Lander sending the final message from the moon. He points out that the writer is trying to convey the amount of data on the probe, saying that he “returned around 120 gigabytes of data, which amounted to over 24,000 songs, to Earth.”
“This made me think,” says Dionne. With so much music streaming today, the size of the song file is “generally not important.” The size of the file also depends on how you compress it and the length of the song. We can certainly agree with it Too well (10 minutes) It’ll be a slightly larger file Please love me – Therefore, songs cannot be used as standardized units of dataset size.
Luckily, Dionne came up with a solution. “Why don’t we use internationally agreed metrics: blue whales?” Blue whale genome It is a base of 2.4 billion. “So it appears that the Blue Ghost sent back data from the moon about 50 Blue Whale.”
Feedback is because we enjoy it Douglas Adams style images A rapid of whales that flow from the moon to the Earth. But we quiesce Dionne’s mathematics. The genome’s base is not equivalent to bytes in the dataset. Each byte is 8 bits, similar to the base. DNA is not binary either. For each position in the genome, there are four options (a, c, g, or t). This means that you can encode the byte using bits on the base half. So, multiplying 8 and dividing 2, I think Blue Ghost sent back around 200 blue whales.
As Dionne suggests, we recommend submitting to our readers that “other comparison units of digital measurement… might be even better to convey the scale of the information.” I look forward to “a thoughtful discourse on this most pressing issue.”
Goodbye, Alice and Bob
Few are likely to kill jokes. So the feedback is a bit nervous about this. This is because it involves both local events and encryption jokes.
We think this might require readers to review, so let’s start with encryption. When describing how a secure messaging system works, it has become traditional to call the two main agents “Alice” and “Bob.” For example, “How can Alice send secure messages to the BOB using a signal messaging app?”
The name has been in use since 1978 and is very popular. Wikipedia Page. In addition to explaining the device history, this page also depicts a very extended list of additional characters that may be involved in these thought experiments. From Chad to “the third participant, usually malicious intent,” Wendy and “whistleblower.”
Basically, if you’re a regular New Scientist Readers, you’ve probably read stories that use Alice and Bob (and their friends/enemies/acquaints/lovers) to explain complex ideas of encryption and physics. You’re familiar with this. So the parody is interesting.
We will not name any related news events. It was widely covered and discussed. But who knows: We’re writing this on March 27th, so by the time you read this you might have forgotten it. The United States may have tentatively invaded Svalbarbad, as he had forgotten which Arctic land Donald Trump wanted.
Anyway, I’ll go here. Bluesky posts to software developer John Vanenk I shared a screenshot Wikipedia page page. “Hegseth and Waltz are fictional characters commonly used as placeholders in discussions about cryptographic systems and protocols, and thought experiments created by Jeffrey Goldberg, who was created by Jeffrey Goldberg in a 2025 article. This was accompanied by a diagram described as an example of a scenario where communication between Hegseth and Waltz is intercepted by Goldberg.”
After all, if you didn’t find it interesting, feedback encourages you to send your comments to our signal account, but we don’t have one.
How awful
Readers Patrick Fenron and Peter Thressenger both wrote to emphasize the same thing. article in Guardianon how migratory birds use quantum mechanics to navigate. According to the biologist cited in the article, it appears that most “we travel at night and ourselves, so no one should follow.” Her name is Miriam Reedvogel, which of course means “songbird.”
As Fenlong said: “Wonderbar.”
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