2018
For putting Australia at the front of the pack in the race to build a quantum computer, Professor Michelle Simmons has been named 2018 Australian of the Year.
The race to quantum is this century’s version of the space race. A working full-scale quantum computer would theoretically be enormously powerful, able to crack today’s most sophisticated encryption in seconds.
There are huge prizes for the country that builds one first – not least gaining a significant national security edge.
Even as China and the US pour billions into research programs, Australia has managed to become a world leader, thanks in part to the efforts of Professor Simmons, who is now recognised as one of the world’s top scientists.
Professor Simmons was handed her trophy by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at a ceremony at Parliament House, Canberra, on Thursday night.
The 50-year-old physicist works as the director of the University of NSW’s Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology.
In 2012 she and a research team at the University developed the world’s first transistor made from only a single atom, as well as the world’s thinnest wire.
The two designs are key parts of a quantum computer.
Transistors are tiny switches that control the flow of current, and they are at the core of all computers. Professor Simmons’s transistor was built on a quantum dot, a particle that measures just four billionths of a metre.
The wire, 10,000 times thinner than a human hair, is only four atoms wide but is still able to conduct electricity.
"We're basically controlling nature at the atomic scale," she said at the time. "This is one of the key milestones in building a quantum computer."
Quantum computers are the next big step in computing. But they are not like normal computers – they are not particularly useful for playing video games, for example. Instead, they specialise in probability.
A working quantum computer could simulate all possible answers to a question, and then zero in on the right one.
"It has many implications for national security and for the financial system and transferring information of any kind,” Professor Simmons said.
Professor Simmons was born and grew up in London. She graduated from Durham University with degrees in physics and chemistry. She obtained a PhD from the same institution for a study of solar cells.
She came to Australia in 1999 on a fellowship to work as a founding member of the Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computer Technology.
In 2005 she won the Australian Academy of Science’s Pawsey Medal, before the Academy elected her a Fellow in 2006 – one of the youngest ever. In 2007 she became an Australian citizen.
She lives in Woollahra, Sydney and is married with three children.