Exploring coherent dynamics and field clocking of quantum-dot cellular automata circuits

探索量子点元胞自动机电路的相干动力学和场时钟

• 批准号: 327333-2011
• 负责人: Walus, Konrad
• 金额: $ 1.6万
• 依托单位: University of British Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2015-01-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=571989
• 关键词: Exploring; coherent; dynamics; field; clocking

Advancements in silicon technology and the computer design tools have enabled the production of chips that have over a billion transistors. However, it has become clear that fundamentally different ideas are necessary in order to push the ultimate limits of scaling. As a result of the investment by both industry and governments, technology is available for manipulating matter at the nano and atomic scale with incredible precision allowing us to consider molecular and atomic devices as potential successors to the conventional transistor. Quantum-dot cellular automata (QCA), a computing paradigm based on the field interaction of dynamic arrays of bi-stable molecular and atomic nanostructures has been shown to implement general purpose computing, as well as contribute to significant reductions in power dissipation, a major challenge with scaling conventional technology. Exciting recent experiments demonstrated a functional QCA device at the atomic scale, providing strong evidence that QCA can indeed reach the ultimate limits of scaling. QCADesigner, the most widely used numerical simulation tool for QCA research has enabled a large number of fundamental circuit and system level studies of this emerging technology. Analytical and numerical research using this tool has highlighted the critical issue of coherent dynamics in QCA and its impact on the ability of the numerical tools to identify the correct system ground state for an arbitrary layout and input vector. The purpose of this fundamental research is to provide entirely new theoretical and numerical tools for QCA by developing and integrating a model for coherent dynamics and the necessary tools to simulate field clocked molecular QCA arrays. These tools will enable a broad range of fundamentally new research studies of the behaviour of QCA circuits and systems including critical studies of the effect of coherent dynamics on the clocking networks, power dissipation, circuit density, and the potential of QCA as a scalable quantum computing technology. These studies will facilitate an improved assessment of the commercial potential of QCA even before all the technical challenges associated with its implementation are fully solved.

硅技术和计算机设计工具的进步使生产具有超过10亿个晶体管的芯片成为可能。然而，很明显，为了推动扩展的最终极限，必须有根本不同的想法。由于工业和政府的投资，技术可以在纳米和原子尺度上以令人难以置信的精度操纵物质，使我们能够将分子和原子器件视为传统晶体管的潜在继任者。量子点元胞自动机（QCA），一种基于双稳态分子和原子纳米结构的动态阵列的场相互作用的计算范例，已被证明可以实现通用计算，并有助于显著降低功耗，这是缩放传统技术的主要挑战。令人兴奋的最近的实验证明了一个功能QCA设备在原子尺度上，提供了强有力的证据，QCA确实可以达到缩放的极限。 QCADesigner是QCA研究中使用最广泛的数值模拟工具，它使大量的基本电路和系统级研究成为可能。使用该工具的分析和数值研究已经突出了相干动力学在QCA中的关键问题及其对数值工具识别任意布局和输入向量的正确系统基态的能力的影响。 这项基础研究的目的是通过开发和集成相干动力学模型和模拟场钟控分子QCA阵列的必要工具，为QCA提供全新的理论和数值工具。这些工具将使QCA电路和系统行为的广泛的全新研究成为可能，包括相干动力学对时钟网络，功耗，电路密度的影响的关键研究，以及QCA作为可扩展量子计算技术的潜力。这些研究将有助于更好地评估QCA的商业潜力，甚至在与其实施相关的所有技术挑战完全解决之前。