Scientists entice superconducting devices to act like atoms

Advance marks progress toward quantum computer made with 'artificial atoms'

Two superconducting devices have been coaxed into a special, interdependent state that mimics the unusual interactions sometimes seen in pairs of atoms, according to a team of physicists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB). The experiments, performed at the NIST laboratory in Boulder, Colo., are an important step toward the possible use of "artificial atoms" made with superconducting materials for storing and processing data in an ultra-powerful quantum computer of the future.