It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, June 03, 2025
SCI-FI-TEK
Advent of the topological quantum battery
Although various proposals for quantum batteries have been put forward, the practical realization of such devices remains elusive.
Researchers from the RIKEN Center for Quantum Computing and Huazhong University of Science and Technology have conducted a theoretical analysis demonstrating how a “topological quantum battery”—an innovative device that leverages the topological properties of photonic waveguides and quantum effects of two-level atoms—could be efficiently designed. The work, published in Physical Review Letters, holds promise for applications in nanoscale energy storage, optical quantum communication, and distributed quantum computing.
With increasing global awareness of the importance of environmental sustainability, developing next-generation energy storage devices has become a critical priority. Quantum batteries—hypothetical miniature devices that, unlike classical batteries that store energy via chemical reactions, rely on quantum properties such as superposition, entanglement, and coherence—have the potential to enhance the storage and transfer of energy. From a mechanistic perspective, they offer potential performance advantages over classical batteries, including improved charging power, increased capacity, and superior work extraction efficiency.
Although various proposals for quantum batteries have been put forward, the practical realization of such devices remains elusive. In practical scenarios involving remote charging and energy dissipation, quantum batteries are significantly affected by energy loss and decoherence, a common issue in quantum devices where a quantum system loses its key properties, such as entanglement and superposition, resulting in suboptimal performance. With regard to energy loss, in photonic systems that use non-topological waveguides—meaning waveguides that are affected by being bent, for example—to channel the photons, energy storage efficiency is significantly degraded due to the dispersion of photons within the waveguide. Other obstacles include environmental dissipation, noise, and disorder, all of which induce decoherence and degrade the performance of the batteries.
In the current study, the joint research team employed analytical and numerical methods in a theoretical framework to address two long-standing challenges that have hindered the practical performance of quantum batteries. By leveraging topological properties—features of a material that remain unchanged under continuous deformations such as twisting or bending—they demonstrated the feasibility of achieving perfect long-distance charging and dissipation immunity of quantum batteries. Surprisingly, they found that dissipation—typically regarded as harmful to battery performance—can also be used to enhance the charging power of quantum batteries transiently.
They demonstrated several key advantages that could make topological quantum batteries feasible for practical applications. One crucial finding was that it is possible to achieve near-perfect energy transfer by leveraging the topological properties of photonic waveguides. The other notable finding is that when the charger and battery are placed at the same site, the system exhibits dissipation immunity confined to a single sublattice. Additionally, the research team revealed that as dissipation exceeds a critical threshold, the charging power undergoes a transient enhancement, breaking the conventional expectation that dissipation always hinders performance.
“Our research provides new insights from a topological perspective and gives us hints toward the realization of high-performance micro-energy storage devices. By overcoming the practical performance limitations of quantum batteries caused by long-distance energy transmission and dissipation, we hope to accelerate the transition from theory to practical application of quantum batteries,” said Zhi-Guang Lu, the first author of the study. “Looking ahead,” says Cheng Shang, the corresponding author of the international research team, “we will continue working to bridge the gap between theoretical study and the practical deployment of quantum devices—ushering in the quantum era we have long envisioned.”
In a recently published peer-reviewed paper researchers applying quantum error correction (QEC) ‘primitives’ on an IBM superconducting processor generated a record 75-qubit GHZ entangled state and higher fidelity gates with less resources required compared to current appoaches.
Quantum error correction (QEC) is a foundational technique that protects fragile quantum information from errors caused by noise and hardware imperfections, making it essential for scalable, reliable quantum computing. Progress in experimental QEC demonstrations has been rapid; however, fully error-corrected calculations remain difficult to implement on today’s hardware, often delivering limited performance gains at high resource costs.
In relation to this, generating large-scale quantum entanglement – a key resource for quantum computing and communication – has remained a significant challenge due to noise and device constraints. Entanglement is part of the ‘secret sauce’ of quantum computers, but it is also one of their most difficult properties to create and maintain. In the future, many quantum algorithms will rely on entanglement to perform computation.
Global effort to build more robust and powerful quantum computers
Previous demonstrations of large-scale entangled state preparation often relied on logical encoding, leading to a high overhead in both qubit count and shot count due to a large discard rate. In this work, Q-CTRL has overcome both hurdles through a strategic application of QEC primitives without logical encoding, yielding significant advantages on superconducting processors while only requiring a modest overhead.
The findings suggest that QEC primitives, even without full logical encoding, could allow users to experience quantum computational advantage over supercomputers earlier than expected. QEC primitives are the fundamental components of quantum error correction protocols.
The company Q-CTRL has announced two record-setting demonstrations that redefine what can be achieved with long-range entanglement generation.
Two demonstrations
With the demonstrations, the first sets a new state-of-the-art in the implementation of a long-range CNOT gate using a novel teleportation protocol based on unitary preparation of a GHZ state, followed by a unitary disentangling step. This approach has the advantage that the final state of the disentangled qubits reveals errors that have occurred during the application of the gate.
With the second, Q-CTRL generated large GHZ states using a protocol that allows for the integration of sparse error detection through ancillary stabiliser measurements. In quantum computing, a Greenberger–Horne–Zeilinger (GHZ) state is a special type of entangled state involving three or more qubits that are perfectly correlated across all qubits.
Most other methods discard almost all shots at large scales, whereas Q-CTRL observes a comparatively low discard rate, where over 80% of the shots are kept in the case of generating a 27-qubit GHZ state and over 21% in the 75-qubit state. These results demonstrate that incorporating QEC primitives on the physical level can deliver a substantial net improvement in the capability of a near-term quantum computer relative to the best alternative.
“This work demonstrates that QEC primitives, even without full logical encoding, can offer significant computational advantages with only modest resource overhead,” says Yuval Baum, Head of Quantum Computing Research in a message sent to Digital Journal. “By designing smart protocols, leveraging intrinsic symmetries and combining strategic error detection, we achieve high-fidelity long-range CNOT gates and generate a 75-qubit GHZ state with genuine multipartite entanglement—the largest reported to date. These results suggest that meaningful benefits from QEC are already accessible on current-generation hardware.”
These record-setting results underscore Q-CTRL’s commitment to fundamental research that makes quantum technology useful today. With limited qubit and runtime resources in the near term, it is helpful to consider the adoption of low-overhead quantum error correction (QEC) subroutines on the physical level without the need for QEC encoding.
By combining error suppression and error detection, this novel paradigm is a step toward useful quantum computing and represents a new building block to the growing quantum error-reduction toolkit.
These achievements contribute directly to the global effort to build more robust and powerful quantum computers, accelerating the timeline for achieving quantum advantage.
Wendelstein 7-X sets new performance records in nuclear fusion research
World's most powerful stellarator sets record in a key parameter of fusion physics: the triple product
On the path toward a fusion power plant, stellarators are among the most promising concepts. In the future, they could generate usable energy by fusing light atomic nuclei. This reaction must take place in a plasma — a hot gas of ionized particles heated to many tens of millions of degrees Celsius. Stellarators use magnetic confinement to hold the plasma: the plasma is trapped by a complex and powerful magnetic field, floating inside a donut-shaped vacuum chamber. With Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald, with support from the European fusion consortium EUROfusion, is operating the world's largest and most powerful experiment of its kind. W7-X is designed to demonstrate that stellarators can, in practice, achieve the outstanding properties predicted by theory – and thus qualify as a concept for future fusion power plants.
World-best triple product for long plasma durations
In the OP 2.3 campaign, which ended on May 22, the international W7-X team achieved a new world record for the triple product in long plasma discharges: on this last day, they sustained a new peak value of this key fusion parameter (see explanation below) for 43 seconds. Wendelstein 7-X thus surpassed the best performances of fusion devices of the tokamak type for longer plasma durations.
Tokamaks also rely on magnetic confinement but are much better studied due to their simpler design. The highest values for the triple product were achieved by the Japanese Tokamak JT60U (decommissioned in 2008) and the European Tokamak facility JET in Great Britain (decommissioned in 2023). With short plasma durations of just a few seconds, they remain the clear front-runners. In terms of longer plasma durations, which are important for a future power plant, Wendelstein 7-X is now ahead, even though JET had three times the plasma volume. Size makes it much easier to achieve high temperatures in fusion reactors.
"The new record is a tremendous achievement by the international team. It impressively demonstrates the potential of Wendelstein 7-X. Elevating the triple product to tokamak levels during long plasma pulses marks another important milestone on the way toward a power-plant-capable stellarator," says Prof. Dr. Thomas Klinger, Head of Operations at Wendelstein 7-X and Head of Stellarator Dynamics and Transport at IPP.
Key to success: the new pellet injector from Oak Ridge National Laboratory
The new triple product world record for long pulses was made possible by the close collaboration between the European Wendelstein 7-X team in Greifswald and partners from the USA. A key role was played by the new pellet injector (more details at the end of this article), which injects frozen hydrogen pellets into the plasma, enabling long plasma durations through continuous refueling. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE)Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in Tennessee developed this highly sophisticated and globally unique injector and successfully put it into operation at Wendelstein 7-X.
During the record-setting experiment, about 90 frozen hydrogen pellets, each about a millimeter in size, were injected over 43 seconds, while powerful microwaves simultaneously heated the plasma. Precise coordination between heating and pellet injection was crucial to achieve the optimal balance between heating power and fuel supply. The key was operating the pellet injector with variable pre-programmed pulse rates for the first time — a scheme executed with impressive precision. This method is directly relevant for future fusion reactors and can potentially extend plasma durations to several minutes.
The use of pellets was made possible thanks to preliminary work carried out by several European laboratories, including simulation calculations by the Centre for Energy, Environmental and Technological Research (CIEMAT) in Spain and observations using ultra-fast cameras by the HUN-REN Centre for Energy Research in Budapest. The microwave heating system (more precisely: electron cyclotron resonance) was developed in collaboration with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and a team from the University of Stuttgart. It is considered the most promising method for bringing plasma to temperatures relevant for fusion.
In the record-breaking experiment, the plasma temperature was raised to over 20 million degrees Celsius, reaching a peak of 30 million degrees. Measurements to calculate the triple product were provided, among others, by Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, which operates an X-ray spectrometer for ion temperature diagnostics at W7-X. The necessary electron density data came from IPP's worldwide unique interferometer. The energy confinement time required for the triple product calculation was also determined using diagnostic tools developed at IPP.
Additional highlights from the OP 2.3 campaign
During the OP 2.3 experimental campaign, Wendelstein 7-X achieved two further milestones:
Energy turnover was increased to 1.8 gigajoules (plasma duration: 360 seconds). The previous record from February 2023 was 1.3 gigajoules. Energy turnover is calculated as the product of injected heating power and plasma duration. Maintaining continuous high-energy input and removing the generated heat are prerequisites for future power plant operation. The corresponding best value for the 1000-second discharge in the Tokamak EAST (China) was even slightly exceeded by Wendelstein 7-X.
Plasma pressure relative to magnetic pressure reached 3% for the first time across the full plasma volume. In a dedicated experiment series, the magnetic field was deliberately reduced to about 70%, lowering magnetic pressure and allowing plasma pressure to rise. This ratio is a key parameter for extrapolating to a fusion power plant, where 4–5% across the volume will be needed. The new record value was accompanied by a peak ion temperature of around 40 million degrees Celsius.
Prof. Dr. Robert Wolf, Head of Stellarator Heating and Optimization at IPP, summarizes: "The records of this experimental campaign are much more than mere numbers. They represent a significant step forward in validating the stellarator concept — made possible through outstanding international collaboration."
View inside the vacuum vessel of the stellarator Wendelstein 7-X iat the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald, Germany
Credit
MPI for Plasma Physics, Jan Hosan
More information about the triple product
The triple product — also known as the Lawson criterion — is the key metric for success on the path to a fusion power plant. Only when a certain threshold is exceeded can a plasma produce more fusion power than the heating power invested. This marks the point where the energy balance becomes positive, and the fusion reaction can sustain itself without continued external heating.
For a fusion power plant, the required threshold is:
n∙T∙𝜏 = 3 × 10²¹ m⁻³ keV s
The triple product is derived from three factors:
the particle density of the plasma n,
its temperature T (more precisely: the temperature of the ions between which fusion reactions take place) and
the energy confinement time 𝜏 (pronounced: tau), i.e. the time it takes for the thermal energy to escape from the plasma if no additional heat is supplied. The confinement time is therefore a measure of the thermal insulation.
In a future fusion power plant, a plasma with a high triple product (y-axis, logarithmic scale) must be maintained for long periods (x-axis). Previous fusion experiments only achieved high values for plasma durations of a very few seconds. On May 22, 2025, Wendelstein 7-X achieved the world record for plasma times of more than 30 seconds with a high fusion product. In this OP2.3 experiment campaign, further best values were achievedfor plasma durations between 30 and 40 seconds. Tokamaks remain the record holders for short plasma times.
Credit
MPI for Plasma Physics, Dinklage et al (to be published) / X. Litaudon et al 2024 Nucl. Fusion 64 015001
More information about the pellet injector
Since September 2024, the new continuously operating pellet injector has been successfully in use. It was developed at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a research center of the U.S. Department of Energy, specifically for Wendelstein 7-X, and it sets a global benchmark in its category. The pellet injector ensures a steady supply of hydrogen particles into the plasma — a crucial requirement for future fusion power plants.
The device continuously forms a 3-millimeter-diameter strand of frozen hydrogen, from which 3.2-millimeter-long cylindrical pellets are cut at intervals of fractions of a second and fired into the plasma at speeds of 300 to 800 meters per second.
The pellet injector in the Wendelstein 7-X experimental hall at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Greifswald, Germany.
Credit
MPI for Plasma Physics, Beate Kemnitz
German Federal Ministry of Research grants millions for “fusion talent” — Dr. Jonas Ohland will lead GSI/FAIR young investigators group
GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung GmbH
View inside the PHELIX laser system at GSI/FAIR
Credit
Photo: J. Hosan, GSI/FAIR
Starting June 1, 2025, Dr. Jonas Ohland, laser physicist at GSI/FAIR, will lead the young investigator group ALADIN (Adaptive Laser Architecture Development and INtegration). For this purpose, he will receive funding of 2.8 million euros over five years from the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space as part of the “Fusionstalente” (fusion talents) program. The ALADIN project lays the foundation for the realization of stable, efficient lasers for inertial confinement fusion.
Inertial fusion involves compressing and heating a tiny fuel capsule using extremely rapid energy input until nuclear fusion starts. Powerful laser beams could be used to achieve this uniform compression and ignition. However, these lasers must deliver high-energy pulses in quick succession, which exposes them to intense heat and stress. To make them viable for future power plants, smart and scalable solutions for beam control are needed — solutions that can be automated and integrated into large-scale systems.
The ALADIN young investigators group aims to fundamentally improve the control of such high-power lasers. Their approach: an “Adaptive Laser Architecture” (ALA) that integrates all key control elements directly into an intelligent support system. This setup allows for better beam guidance while reducing the need for manual intervention. ALA could enable the simultaneous control of hundreds of laser systems — a critical requirement for building large-scale fusion facilities.
“I am very grateful for this support and the opportunity to push the boundaries of laser beam control,” says Ohland. “With ALADIN, we aim to make significant progress in making next-generation high-power lasers more robust and practical — especially with regard to inertial fusion. Our goal is to bridge the gap between research and real-world applications in this rapidly evolving field.”
“The results will benefit not only fusion research, but also other areas where high-power lasers are needed — such as the laser industry or large-scale scientific facilities,” adds Professor Vincent Bagnoud, head of the GSI/FAIR research department “Plasma Physics/PHELIX”, to which Ohland belongs. “There is also great potential for our own high-power laser system PHELIX — a petawatt laser which can be combined with the ion beam from the particle accelerator for the experiments — to improve our operations and thus our research opportunities.”
Professor Thomas Nilsson, Scientific Managing Director of GSI and FAIR, says: “My congratulations on the young investigators group go to our ‘fusion talent’ Dr. Jonas Ohland. The successful funding application represents the wealth of ideas and the expertise of our young scientists. Training and supporting the next generation of researchers is a matter close to our hearts and a necessity for our future at the international accelerator facility FAIR. Fusion-related research will also play an important role in the FAIR research program.”
ALADIN is cooperating with Focused Energy GmbH, a fusion energy startup in Darmstadt, and other scientific institutions to develop and disseminate ALA technology in order to ensure its long-term industrial application. After the funding period, an ALADIN Community Competence Group hosted by GSI/FAIR will focus on open ALA research, industrial cooperation and education, financed by third-party funds and income from licenses and services.
About Dr. Jonas Ohland
Dr. Jonas Ohland studied at the Technical University of Darmstadt and obtained his PhD in 2022 with a thesis at the GSI/FAIR high-power laser PHELIX (Petawatt-High-Energy Laser for Ion Experiments). Subsequently he worked as a postdoc at the Apollon laser facility in Paris, France, as part of the THRILL project — a European research consortium coordinated by GSI to provide new designs and high-performance components for high-energy lasers with high repetition rates — before returning to GSI/FAIR in 2024. His pioneering work at Apollon led to impressive results in the field of real-time adaptive optics for high-power lasers and served as the basis for the ALADIN application.
About the “Fusionstalente” program
“Fusionstalente” — a young investigators program, initiated by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space — aims to strengthen expertise in fusion research by fostering the development of young scientific talent. It supports early-career researchers through targeted funding of their own group, training opportunities, and access to cutting-edge fusion research facilities. By investing in the next generation of fusion scientists, the program contributes to advancing sustainable and innovative energy solutions in Germany and Europe. The Fusionstalente program is part of the funding program “Fusion 2040 – Research on the Way to the Fusion Power Plant”.
MILANO, Italy, 3 June 2025 – In a comprehensive Genomic Press Interview published in Brain Medicine, Professor Francesco Benedetti shares his transformative journey from confronting childhood awareness of mental illness to becoming a leading figure in psychiatric research. As founder and leader of the Psychiatry & Clinical Psychobiology research unit at IRCCS Ospedale San Raffaele, Dr. Benedetti has dedicated decades to reclaiming psychiatry's rightful place within medical science.
Professor Benedetti's career trajectory reflects both personal conviction and scientific rigor. Despite facing rejection from traditional psychiatric training programs that viewed mental illness as merely "functional," he persevered through an alternative path that ultimately revolutionized treatment approaches for mood disorders. "I see no boundaries between science and everyday clinical work," Dr. Benedetti states, emphasizing his commitment to translating research directly into patient care.
Chronotherapeutics: A Revolutionary Approach to Treatment
The urgent need to help acutely depressed, suicidal patients with bipolar disorder who showed no response to standard antidepressant treatments drove Professor Benedetti and his colleagues toward chronotherapeutics. Their innovative protocols combining environmental stimuli such as light and dark with sleep-wake rhythm manipulations have achieved rapid therapeutic effects in acute depression. These developments emerged from direct clinical observation rather than theoretical speculation.
Professor Benedetti's team pioneered techniques that remain widely used today. Through international lecture tours, he continues teaching colleagues these methods developed in the 1990s, demonstrating how neuroscience research and clinical practice can harmonize effectively. The work has revealed crucial insights into how genetic variants of core clock machinery components including GSK-3β, CLOCK, and hPER3 influence human behavior and brain function.
Uncovering the Immune Connection in Mood Disorders
A pattern of unusual infections and autoimmune conditions among psychiatric patients sparked Professor Benedetti's exploration into immuno-psychiatry. His clinical observations of patients experiencing relapses following fevers and infections led to groundbreaking research on immune-inflammatory mechanisms in mood disorder etiopathogenesis. This perspective gained particular relevance during the COVID-19 pandemic, when Professor Benedetti predicted and subsequently documented post-COVID depression linked to prolonged inflammation.
Current research in Professor Benedetti's laboratory focuses on how gene variants moderate the effects of life events and pathogen exposure on immune-inflammatory setpoints. These mechanisms ultimately impair brain homeostasis, particularly affecting white matter integrity. Through advanced neuroimaging techniques, his team has demonstrated how the interaction between genetic factors, adverse childhood experiences, and low-grade inflammation produces measurable changes in brain structure.
Bridging Molecular Mechanisms and Clinical Reality
Professor Benedetti's approach to psychiatric genomics extends beyond academic interest. By studying functional polymorphisms affecting treatment response, his research has contributed to personalized medicine approaches now offered through pharmacogenetic screening packages worldwide. Notably, variants affecting serotonin promoter, 5-HT2A, COMT, and GSK-3β genes influence both illness course and treatment outcomes.
The integration of brain imaging with genetic analysis has revealed how treatment interacts with gene variants to alter neural responses and brain structure during recovery. This comprehensive approach demonstrates that mood disorders involve complex interactions between biological vulnerability, environmental exposure, and therapeutic intervention. Questions arising from this work include: How might early identification of genetic risk profiles guide preventive interventions? Could immune system modulation become a primary treatment strategy for certain mood disorder subtypes?
Challenging Medical Misogyny and Advancing Women's Health
Beyond his scientific contributions, Professor Benedetti advocates passionately against medical misogyny and the dismissal of women's mental health concerns. He challenges the persistent notion that conditions specific to women represent weakness or hysteria, noting that suicide remains the leading cause of postpartum death in developed nations. This advocacy reflects his broader commitment to reducing stigma by demonstrating that mental illnesses are "deeply rooted in our body malfunction, as it happens in every other branch of medicine."
His research perspective appears endless, driven by exponential progress in neuroscience and the recognition that modern psychiatry remains "still in its infancy." Professor Benedetti continues observing patients, asking questions, and applying new methodological advances to unlock the biological basis of mental suffering. The rewards come not from academic accolades but from seeing other researchers build upon his findings to increase patient benefits.
A Life Dedicated to Scientific Truth
Professor Francesco Benedetti's Genomic Press interview is part of a larger series called Innovators & Ideas that highlights the people behind today's most influential scientific breakthroughs. Each interview in the series offers a blend of cutting-edge research and personal reflections, providing readers with a comprehensive view of the scientists shaping the future. By combining a focus on professional achievements with personal insights, this interview style invites a richer narrative that both engages and educates readers. This format provides an ideal starting point for profiles that delve into the scientist's impact on the field, while also touching on broader human themes. More information on the research leaders and rising stars featured in our Innovators & Ideas – Genomic Press Interview series can be found in our publications website: https://genomicpress.kglmeridian.com/.
The Genomic Press Interview in Brain Medicine titled "Francesco Benedetti: breaking boundaries between modern psychiatry and clinical medicine," is freely available via Open Access on 3 June 2025 in Brain Medicine at the following hyperlink: https://doi.org/10.61373/bm025k.0065.
About Brain Medicine: Brain Medicine (ISSN: 2997-2639, online and 2997-2647, print) is a peer-reviewed medical research journal published by Genomic Press, New York. Brain Medicine is a new home for the cross-disciplinary pathway from innovation in fundamental neuroscience to translational initiatives in brain medicine. The journal's scope includes the underlying science, causes, outcomes, treatments, and societal impact of brain disorders, across all clinical disciplines and their interface.
Visit the Genomic Press Virtual Library: https://issues.genomicpress.com/bookcase/gtvov/
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Francesco Benedetti immersed in visual art and music at Musea Brugge, January 2025, embodying his philosophy of satisfying his “voracious curiosity” through museum visits and cultural experiences.
