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A woman's purse contents, including the ubiquitous emergency tampon. Image by Helga Weber, protected by a Creative Commons license.

Quantum computers are largely theoretical devices that would exploit the weird properties of matter at extremely small scales to perform calculations, in some cases much more rapidly than conventional computers can.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicist Stefano Lepri of the Italian National Research Council and his partner Giulio Casati of the University of Insubria, have published a paper in Physical Review Letters, where they demonstrate through mathematical theory that it should be possible to create asymmetric materials that allow most light or sound waves to pass through in one direction, while mostly preventing them from doing so when going the opposite way.