A new way of creating arrays of ultracold neutral atoms could make it possible to build quantum computers with more than 100,000 quantum bits (qubits) – two orders of magnitude higher than today’s best machines. The approach, which was demonstrated by physicists at Columbia University in the US, uses optical metasurfaces to generate the forces required to trap and manipulate the atoms. According to its developers, this method is much more scalable than traditional techniques for generating arrays of atomic qubits. “Neutral atom arrays have become a leading quantum technology, notably for quantum computing, where single atoms serve as qubits,” explains atomic physicist Sebastian Will, who co-led the study with his Columbia colleague Nanfang Yu.…