Physicist to Receive Stern-Gerlach Medal for Quantum Computer Research

Rainer Blatt, an experimental physicist from the University of Innsbruck’s Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information, will be honored with the Stern-Gerlach Medal from the German Physical Society.

He will receive the medal on March 27, 2012 at the 76th Annual Meeting of the Society in Berlin from the German Research Minister, Anette Schavan.

The Stern-Gerlach Medal is the most prestigious award from German Physical Society that recognizes people for contributing in the field of experimental physics. Rainer Blatt will be the first Austrian scientist to be honored with this prestigious award.

Rainer Blatt is being honored for his contribution in the fields of quantum information processing and metrology with electromagnetically stored ions. The German Physical Society declared that the experimental proofs of basic building blocks as well as algorithms of a quantum computer, the first recognition of quantum bytes, teleportation of quantum states of matter, and the affectation of quantum systems have revealed new scientific research fields and opened up the possibility for potential quantum technology. The Stern-Gerlach Medal, which is offered to scientists for their work in the area of experimental physics, is composed of pure gold.

A future quantum computer utilizes quantum mechanics’ particular nature. Rainer Blatt revealed in early experiments that trapped ions allow a novel experimental platform to encode, prepare and measure weigh quantum bits. Through an intricate series of laser pulses, total quantum logical operations are actualized. Teleportation is a popular example of quantum algorithms.

The work completed by Blatt and his research team at the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and the Institute for Experimental Physics of the University of Innsbruck has motivated scientists beyond the area of Quantum Optics and Quantum Information and influenced them to explore the fields of condensed matter physics and ultracold atoms.

Source: http://www.uibk.ac.at/