Introduction

Abstract

In current day computer and communication technology, information is represented in bits. Computation is performed by applying a series of logical gates to the bits, and in between storing their value in a memory. Quantum computation takes these ideas to the the quantum world. Loosely speaking, using the superposition concept, many computations can be done in parallel thus achieving an exponential speed up. Quantum bits (qubits) replace the classical bit, with the important feature that they are capable of being in a coherent superposition of the two underlying logical states. Other counterparts of classical computation span from quantum memories to quantum processors.