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Columbia Physicists Advance Quantum Computing with 1,000 Atoms

2/3/2026

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Summary

Story summary

Columbia University physicists Sebastian Will and Nanfang Yu advance quantum computing by trapping more than 1,000 atoms with optical tweezers and metasurfaces.
They aim to build arrays of over 100,000 neutral-atom qubits because neutral atom arrays are identical and abundant.
The metasurfaces, made from silicon nitride and titanium dioxide, enable large, precise optical tweezer arrays, as scaling to 100,000 atoms requires a more powerful laser.

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Story summary

Columbia University physicists Sebastian Will and Nanfang Yu advance quantum computing by trapping more than 1,000 atoms with optical tweezers and metasurfaces.
They aim to build arrays of over 100,000 neutral-atom qubits because neutral atom arrays are identical and abundant.
The metasurfaces, made from silicon nitride and titanium dioxide, enable large, precise optical tweezer arrays, as scaling to 100,000 atoms requires a more powerful laser.