Although I write a lot about quantum computing, I’ve not really paid much attention to performing quantum computations with silicon-based qubits. Luckily Stephanie Simmons from Simon Fraser University in Canada helped me catch up.

The idea with silicon-based quantum computers is that impurities form the basis of a qubits. If you drop a single phosphorous atom into a silicon crystal, it replaces a silicon atom. But it has one proton and one electron more than the surrounding atoms. That single proton and electron behave like their own little artificial atom, one that looks a lot like hydrogen.