The research provides building blocks for future quantum computing technology.
SASKATOON – Ryan Day studies superconductors. Materials that conduct electricity perfectly, without losing energy due to heat and resistance. Specifically, the University of California, Berkeley scientist is studying how superconductors can coexist with their opposites; insulating materials that slow down the flow of electrons.
The materials that combine these two opposing states, called topological superconductors, are understandably strange, difficult to characterize and design, but if they could be designed correctly, they could play an important role in quantum computing.
“All computers are prone to errors, and that’s no different when it comes to quantum computing; it’s much harder to manage. Topological quantum computing is one of the platforms that is believed to be able to bypass many of the sources of error. more common, “says Day,” but topological quantum computing requires us to make a particle that has never been seen before in nature. “
Day came to the Canadian light source at the University of Saskatchewan to use the QMSC light line, a facility built to explore exactly these kinds of questions in quantum materials. The skills were developed under the leadership of Andrea Damascelli, scientific director of the Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute at UBC, with whom Day was a doctoral student at the time of this research.
The results of this work, published in Physical Review B, provide further evidence that lithium iron arsenide supports topological states on its surface, key to potentially using the material in quantum computing. It also reveals potential challenges for materials engineering for these applications, an area for future research.
“By doing these experiments, we can understand this material in a much better way and start thinking about how we can really use it, and then we hope someone builds a quantum computer with it and everyone wins.”