The 2010 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics presented to J. Ignacio Cirac, David J. Wineland and Peter Zoller

A quantum computer is a device that makes explicit use of quantum mechanical phenomena, such as superposition and entanglement, to perform operations on data. General ideas of quantum computing were discussed in information theory since the 1970s and a possibility of constructing quantum computers from atoms or photons was suggested by Richard Feynman in 1981. A quantum computer would allow one to solve problems that a typical traditional computer cannot. This is because quantum effects make it possible to simultaneously process huge amounts of data, as opposed to processing them sequentially by a classical computer. In 1994, Ignacio Cirac and Peter Zoller proposed an experiment to construct a quantum computing device using cold trapped ions. This concrete description of a realistic quantum logic gate, the fundamental device in the computer that performs basis logic functions, allowed David Wineland and coworkers to build such a gate within a year. It was the first realization of quantum computer logic at the level of individual atoms. This work has demonstrated that quantum computing—with its potential of vast increases in computing power—may be possible.