Giannetti: From the Nobel in Physics, the Revolution of Quantum Bits
Giannetti: From the Nobel in Physics, the Revolution of Quantum Bits
Catholic University laboratories study quantum properties of matter
“The discovery that quantum properties can manifest in macroscopic systems represents a true technological and conceptual revolution. Indeed, the 2025 Nobel Prize has been awarded to three researchers who first demonstrated that actual electrical circuits can show the same quantum properties as, for example, single atoms, single electrons, or matter on extremely small spatial scales.”
Claudio Giannetti, a condensed matter physicist at the Faculty of Mathematical, Physical and Natural Sciences of the Catholic University of Brescia, commented on the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physics awarded to Americans John Clarke, Michel H. Devoret, and John M. Martinis for their contribution to quantum mechanics.
“This is not only a conceptual paradigm shift — meaning that quantum mechanics is valid, can be applied, used, and its consequences can be seen in macroscopic systems — but it has also opened up the entire revolution of quantum computing,” he added. “These electrical circuits can be used as quantum bits, which are the quantum analogue of classical bits.”
Giannetti explained that these developments are relevant for data protection (quantum cryptography) and for optimization problems — that is, finding a function that optimizes certain parameters — with applications especially in finance (portfolio optimization), logistics, traffic, automotive, and many other fields. “This is the revolution that is coming with quantum computers, which find their foundations in the discovery made by the Nobel laureates.”
He noted that a very active area of research now is trying to achieve similar properties not only at low temperatures in superconducting systems, but also in different systems at high temperatures. “And this is also what we study in the iLamp laboratories at the Catholic University, where we try to understand how to exploit the quantum properties of matter on macroscopic scales, but also at very high temperatures.”
