The Early Days of Quantum Engineering

Buried in the weekend links dump at the arxiv blog was Scalable ion traps for quantum information processing:

We report on the design, fabrication, and preliminary testing of a 150 zone array built in a `surface-electrode' geometry microfabricated on a single substrate. We demonstrate transport of atomic ions between legs of a `Y'-type junction and measure the in-situ heating rates for the ions. The trap design demonstrates use of a basic component design library that can be quickly assembled to form structures optimized for a particular experiment.

At first glance, this isn't a sexy paper, in that it's primarily about engineering of components rather than cool quantum effects. Looked at another way, though, this is cool stuff-- quantum computing has evolved from the days when it was difficult to do at all, to the point where people are working on modular design for scaling up the devices to a useful size.

Granted, in the history of computation this is much closer to the "nerdy guys at Bell Labs pose with a prototype transistor" than a Quantum iPhone. But it's still a real shift in the field, and kind of cool to see.