MAROKO133 Hot ai: Tiny atomic tweak turns silicon into a high-efficiency light source for

📌 MAROKO133 Hot ai: Tiny atomic tweak turns silicon into a high-efficiency light s

In the strange world of quantum physics, even the tiniest tweak can unlock outsized rewards. 

In a new study, scientists have shown that simply swapping one type of hydrogen atom for a slightly heavier version inside silicon can make it dramatically better at producing single photons. 

This may sound like a minor chemical adjustment, but it could have major consequences for quantum computers and ultra-secure communication networks. 

“Efficient single-photon emitters are desirable for quantum technologies, including quantum networks and photonic quantum computers,” the study authors note.

The study challenges the long-held belief that silicon is an inefficient host for quantum light sources. Instead, it shows that silicon, which is already the backbone of modern electronics, may also power the quantum internet of the future.

Creating the perfect defect

At the center of this discovery is a tiny imperfection in silicon known as the T center. A color center is a small defect in a crystal lattice—in this case, two carbon atoms and one hydrogen atom embedded inside silicon. 

When energized, this defect can emit a single photon, which is exactly what quantum technologies need. The T center is particularly attractive because it emits light in the same wavelength band used by fiber-optic internet cables (the telecommunications O-band). 

This means it could connect directly to today’s communication infrastructure. However, there has been a problem. The T center sometimes loses its energy without emitting light. Instead of releasing a photon, it dissipates energy as vibration—a process called nonradiative decay. 

Scientists know this happens, but they don’t understand why or how to stop it. The researchers decided to find an answer. Their study began with isotopes. 

“The T center, which consists of two carbon atoms and a hydrogen atom in the silicon lattice, can be produced in different isotopic forms. For example, the hydrogen can be either the common, lighter isotope (protium) or the rarer, heavier isotope (deuterium),” Moein Kazemi, one of the lead researchers, told Phys.org.

Since deuterium is heavier, it changes how atoms vibrate inside the crystal. To investigate this effect carefully, the study authors first needed exceptionally pure silicon. 

Their collaborators in Germany grew high-purity silicon crystals originally developed for the Avogadro project, which aimed to redefine the kilogram using nearly perfect silicon spheres. These ultra-clean samples were ideal for studying delicate quantum properties.

The researchers then created T centers by irradiating the silicon with high-energy particles. After irradiation, they carefully heated and cooled the samples to allow the defects to form correctly.

They prepared three types of samples. One with natural hydrogen (mostly protium), the second deliberately infused with deuterium, so the heavier isotope dominated, and a third one enriched with carbon-13, creating different carbon isotope configurations.

To clearly observe subtle differences between these variants, the samples were cooled to below 4 Kelvin (-269.1°C or -452.5°F) using liquid helium. At such low temperatures, atomic vibrations slow dramatically, making quantum effects easier to measure.

Watching vibrations steal light

With the samples prepared, the team used photoluminescence spectroscopy and a Fourier transform infrared spectrometer to identify each isotopic variant’s emission lines. These measurements allowed them to directly observe vibrational modes inside the defect.

They found that replacing hydrogen with deuterium lowered the energy of the carbon-hydrogen (C–H) bond vibration. This seemingly small change turned out to be crucial. Lower vibrational energy suppresses the unwanted decay pathway that drains energy without producing light.

To measure how long each T center remained excited before emitting a photon, the team used pulsed resonant laser excitation. By tuning the laser precisely, they could target one isotopic variant at a time. Photon arrival times were recorded using time-resolved single-photon detectors.

The results were interesting. The excited-state lifetime of the deuterated T center was 5.4 times longer than that of the common protium version. In fact, its lifetime was nearly what one would expect if nonradiative decay did not occur at all. 

Moreover, Initial estimates suggest the deuterated T center could exceed 90% efficiency—and possibly even reach above 98%. This enormous difference revealed what the researchers call a giant isotope effect. It showed that energy loss is strongly linked to vibrations of the local C–H bond. 

“Our collaborators from the U.S. Naval Research Lab, Mark Turiansky and John Lyons, modeled this decay process and found that the standard ‘accepting mode’ approach for modeling vibrational decay completely fails in this case,” Daniel Higginbottom, one of the study authors, said.

“We show that a very simple alternative ansatz, considering only the C-H stretch mode, matches the experiment quite well and reproduces the strong isotope dependence,” Higginbottom added. 

A heavier atom, a lighter path to the quantum internet

The heavier isotope also improved what is known as optical cyclicity—the number of times the system can be excited and emit light before it must be reset. 

For instance, the study authors estimate that the deuterated T center can be optically cycled roughly 300 times more than the protium version. This makes “single-shot readout of the electron spin feasible and could speed up quantum operations on T centers,” Higginbottom said.

For many years, silicon color centers were largely overlooked because they were thought to be inefficient compared to defects in materials like diamond. This study provides some of the strongest evidence yet that silicon can host highly efficient single-photon emitters. 

Since T centers naturally emit in the telecom O-band, they are well-suited for distributing quantum information over tens of kilometers of existing optical fiber. 

Interestingly, Photonic Inc, a quantum technology company that was als…

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🔗 Sumber: interestingengineering.com

📌 MAROKO133 Eksklusif ai: Salesforce rolls out new Slackbot AI agent as it battles

Salesforce on Tuesday launched an entirely rebuilt version of Slackbot, the company's workplace assistant, transforming it from a simple notification tool into what executives describe as a fully powered AI agent capable of searching enterprise data, drafting documents, and taking action on behalf of employees.

The new Slackbot, now generally available to Business+ and Enterprise+ customers, is Salesforce's most aggressive move yet to position Slack at the center of the emerging "agentic AI" movement — where software agents work alongside humans to complete complex tasks. The launch comes as Salesforce attempts to convince investors that artificial intelligence will bolster its products rather than render them obsolete.

"Slackbot isn't just another copilot or AI assistant," said Parker Harris, Salesforce co-founder and Slack's chief technology officer, in an exclusive interview with Salesforce. "It's the front door to the agentic enterprise, powered by Salesforce."

From tricycle to Porsche: Salesforce rebuilt Slackbot from the ground up

Harris was blunt about what distinguishes the new Slackbot from its predecessor: "The old Slackbot was, you know, a little tricycle, and the new Slackbot is like, you know, a Porsche."

The original Slackbot, which has existed since Slack's early days, performed basic algorithmic tasks — reminding users to add colleagues to documents, suggesting channel archives, and delivering simple notifications. The new version runs on an entirely different architecture built around a large language model and sophisticated search capabilities that can access Salesforce records, Google Drive files, calendar data, and years of Slack conversations.

"It's two different things," Harris explained. "The old Slackbot was algorithmic and fairly simple. The new Slackbot is brand new — it's based around an LLM and a very robust search engine, and connections to third-party search engines, third-party enterprise data."

Salesforce chose to retain the Slackbot brand despite the fundamental technical overhaul. "People know what Slackbot is, and so we wanted to carry that forward," Harris said.

Why Anthropic's Claude powers the new Slackbot — and which AI models could come next

The new Slackbot runs on Claude, Anthropic's large language model, a choice driven partly by compliance requirements. Slack's commercial service operates under FedRAMP Moderate certification to serve U.S. federal government customers, and Harris said Anthropic was "the only provider that could give us a compliant LLM" when Slack began building the new system.

But that exclusivity won't last. "We are, this year, going to support additional providers," Harris said. "We have a great relationship with Google. Gemini is incredible — performance is great, cost is great. So we're going to use Gemini for some things." He added that OpenAI remains a possibility as well.

Harris echoed Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff's view that large language models are becoming commoditized: "You've heard Marc talk about LLMs are commodities, that they're democratized. I call them CPUs."

On the sensitive question of training data, Harris was unequivocal: Salesforce does not train any models on customer data. "Models don't have any sort of security," he explained. "If we trained it on some confidential conversation that you and I have, I don't want Carolyn to know — if I train it into the LLM, there is no way for me to say you get to see the answer, but Carolyn doesn't."

Inside Salesforce's internal experiment: 80,000 employees tested Slackbot with striking results

Salesforce has been testing the new Slackbot internally for months, rolling it out to all 80,000 employees. According to Ryan Gavin, Slack's chief marketing officer, the results have been striking: "It's the fastest adopted product in Salesforce history."

Internal data shows that two-thirds of Salesforce employees have tried the new Slackbot, with 80% of those users continuing to use it regularly. Internal satisfaction rates reached 96% — the highest for any AI feature Slack has shipped. Employees report saving between two and 20 hours per week.

The adoption happened largely organically. "I think it was about five days, and a Canvas was developed by our employees called 'The Most Stealable Slackbot Prompts,'" Gavin said. "People just started adding to it organically. I think it's up to 250-plus prompts that are in this Canvas right now."

Kate Crotty, a principal UX researcher at Salesforce, found that 73% of internal adoption was driven by social sharing rather than top-down mandates. "Everybody is there to help each other learn and communicate hacks," she said.

How Slackbot transforms scattered enterprise data into executive-ready insights

During a product demonstration, Amy Bauer, Slack's product experience designer, showed how Slackbot can synthesize information across multiple sources. In one example, she asked Slackbot to analyze customer feedback from a pilot program, upload an image of a usage dashboard, and have Slackbot correlate the qualitative and quantitative data.

"This is where Slackbot really earns its keep for me," Bauer explained. "What it's doing is not just simply reading the image — it's actually looking at the image and comparing it to the insight it just generated for me."

Slackbot can then query Salesforce to find enterprise accounts with open deals that might be good candidates for early access, creating what Bauer called "a really great justification and plan to move forward." Finally, it can synthesize all that information into a Canvas — Slack's collaborative document format — and find calendar availability among stakeholders to schedule a review meeting.

"Up until this point, we have been working in a one-to-one capacity with Slackbot," Bauer said. "But one of the benefits that I can do now is take this insight and have it generate this into a Canvas, a shared workspace where I can iterate on it, refine it with Slackbot, or share it out with my team."

Rob Seaman, Slack's chief product officer, said the Canvas creation demonstrates where the product is heading: "This is making a tool call internally to Slack Canvas to actually write, effectively, a shared document. But it signals where we're going with Slackbot — we're eventually going to be adding in additional third-party tool calls."

MrBeast's company became a Slackbot guinea pig—and employees say they're saving 90 minutes a day

Among Salesforce's pilot customers is Beast Industries, the parent company of YouTube star MrBeast. Luis Madrigal, the company's chief information officer, joined the launch announcement to describe his experience.

"As somebody who has rolled out enterprise technologies for over two decades now, this was practically one of the easiest," Madrigal …

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🔗 Sumber: venturebeat.com