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NSF awards $1 6M Quantum Idea Incubator Award to U-led team

The grant is part of a program aimed at moving quantum technology forward, one of NSF’s “10 Big Ideas”for the next

Vikram Deshpande, assistant professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy (left) and doctoral candidate Su Kong Chong (right) stand in the “coolest lab on campus.” Deshpande leads a lab that can cool topological materials down to just a few fractions of a degree above absolute zero at -273.15°C (-459.67°F). It is literally the coldest laboratory on campus.

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Photo credit: Lisa Potter/University of Utah

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $1,635,591 to scientists from the University of Utah and a collaborator from University of California, Los Angeles to research one of the biggest hurdles to quantum computing—the quantum logic units, or “qubits,” that carry information. The award is one of 15 grants totaling $26 million funded by the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Quantum Leap Big Idea Program, one of the “10 Big Ideas” that represent bold, long-term research ideas at the cutting-edge of science and engineering.

The U-led project, “Quantum Devices with Majorana Fermions in High-Quality Three-Dimensional Topological Insulator Heterostructures,” was funded through an initiative called the Quantum Idea Incubator for Transformational Advances in Quantum Systems (QII - TAQS). QII - TAQS supports interdisciplinary teams that will explore innovative, transformative ideas for quantum science and engineering. Vikram Deshpande, assistant professor in the Department of Physics, will lead the team of co-principle investigators that consists of the U Department of Materials Science and Engineering’s Feng Liu, professor, and Taylor Sparks, associate professor, along with UCLA’s Keng Wang.

Current computers process information via transistors carrying one of two units of information, either a 1 or a 0. Quantum computing is based on the quantum mechanical behavior of the logic unit, a qubit that could transmit astoundingly more information than the binary system. It has been an ongoing scientific challenge to create qubits robust enough to hold instructions without being impacted by the surrounding environment (and manipulation of the quantum state itself) and resulting in errors. A new type of material, called a three-dimensional topological insulator, is one of the best candidates from which to create resilient qubits that will be protected from losing their quantum information.