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Researchers have for the first time used atomic ions and lasers to successfully simulate the behaviour of real molecules, opening the door to a range of potential discoveries that could transform medicine, pharmaceuticals, energy and materials science.

The team, from Dalhousie University and the University of Sydney in Australia, mimicked the behaviour of several small molecules in a process known as an 'analog quantum simulation,' a highly efficient method that uses just a single single atomic ion trapped by an electric field -- a fraction of the hardware resources needed by traditional digital quantum computers.

As a result, the motion of the ion was billions of times slower than the simulated molecules, allowing researchers to study it in more detail than a typical molecular experiment.

The findings, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, push the frontier by simulating how molecules behave when excited by light – a process involving ultrafast electronic and vibrational changes that classical computers struggle to model accurately or efficiently.

The development holds great promise for understanding a wide array of light-driven chemical phenomena. Applications range from photosynthesis and DNA damage caused by UV radiation to energy harvesting by solar cells and shortcuts in the synthesis of pharmaceuticals.

Ryan MacDonell, an assistant professor in Dalhousie's Department of Chemistry, co-authored the study and is available to discuss how this work is an important step towards using quantum devices to simulate and better understand chemistry beyond the abilities of conventional computers.

Media contact:

Alison Auld
Senior Research Reporter
Dalhousie University
Cell: 1-902-220-0491
Email: alison.auld@dal.ca