Topological superconductors: Materials, topological order, and quenched disorder

拓扑超导体：材料、拓扑顺序和淬火无序

• 批准号: 1821842
• 负责人: Matthew Foster
• 金额: $ 0.7万
• 依托单位: William Marsh Rice University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-03-15 至 2019-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1821842&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Topological; superconductors; Materials; topological; order

The Condensed Matter and Materials Theory and Condensed Matter Physics Programs jointly contribute support to this award. This award provides resources for a workshop that brings together theorists and experimentalists to discuss a possible new kind of superconductivity that may have application in the development of quantum computers. The workshop will be held at Rice University on April 24-25, 2018. Whether a material conducts electricity or not provides a natural classification of materials into metals like copper and insulators like silicon. Within the past 20 years, it was realized that insulators can be bit more interesting. There are the classic insulators like silicon and rubber, but there are also topological insulators which have an insulating bulk and intrinsic metallic states that surround the surfaces and edges. Bismuth selenide, a compound made from the elements of bismuth and selenium, provides an example of a topological insulator. Since the discovery of topological insulators, new classes of topological materials have been proposed, among these are topological superconductors. Superconductors have no resistance to the flow of electricity. This reflects the collective quantum mechanical behavior of the electrons in the superconducting state. Topological superconductors have a superconducting bulk. While topological insulators have associated metallic surface states, topological superconductors have exotic surface states that behave differently than collections of ordinary particles like electrons and photons - the "particles" of light, but in a way that could form the basis of computation by manipulation of a quantum mechanical state. Topological materials are robust to noise and defects that would disrupt most quantum mechanical states and severely limit their use in quantum computers.Driven by potential applications to quantum computing, there is now an intense worldwide search for materials that exhibit the experimental signatures of topological superconductors. This two-day workshop will bring together scientists from around the world that use experiments to probe candidate materials, as well as those that develop the theory and phenomenology of topological superconductivity. An important distinguishing feature of this workshop will be a focus on bulk topological superconducting materials and two-dimensional surface states. The workshop will address an acute need to gather and focus theoretical and experimental leaders in this nascent field, which has received much less attention than other efforts to engineer quantum computers. Graduate and undergraduate students will be encouraged to attend the workshop to excite interest in the next generation. A report on opportunities in research on topological superconductivity will result from this activity. This workshop is aligned with the NSF's Quantum Leap Big Idea.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

凝聚态物质和材料理论和凝聚态物理计划共同为该奖项提供支持。该奖项为一个研讨会提供了资源，该研讨会将理论家和实验学家聚集在一起，讨论一种可能在量子计算机开发中应用的新型超导性。研讨会将于2018年4月24日至25日在莱斯大学举行。一种材料是否导电提供了一种自然的材料分类，分为铜等金属和硅等绝缘体。在过去的20年里，人们意识到绝缘体可以更有趣一些。有经典的绝缘体，如硅和橡胶，但也有拓扑绝缘体，它们具有绝缘体和围绕表面和边缘的固有金属状态。硒化铋是一种由铋和硒元素制成的化合物，提供了拓扑绝缘体的一个例子。自从拓扑绝缘体被发现以来，人们提出了新的拓扑材料类别，其中包括拓扑超导体。超导体对电流没有阻力。这反映了电子在超导状态下的集体量子力学行为。拓扑超导体具有超导体块。虽然拓扑绝缘体具有相关的金属表面态，但拓扑超导体具有奇异的表面态，其行为与电子和光子等普通粒子的集合不同-光的“粒子”，但在某种程度上可以通过操纵量子力学状态来形成计算的基础。拓扑材料对噪声和缺陷具有鲁棒性，这些噪声和缺陷会破坏大多数量子力学状态，并严重限制它们在量子计算机中的应用。受量子计算潜在应用的推动，现在全世界都在积极寻找表现出拓扑超导体实验特征的材料。这个为期两天的研讨会将汇集来自世界各地的科学家，他们使用实验来探测候选材料，以及那些开发拓扑超导理论和现象学的科学家。 该研讨会的一个重要特色是重点关注体拓扑超导材料和二维表面态。该研讨会将解决一个迫切需要收集和集中在这个新兴领域的理论和实验领导者，这比其他工程量子计算机的努力受到的关注要少得多。研究生和本科生将被鼓励参加研讨会，以激发对下一代的兴趣。这项活动将产生一份关于拓扑超导性研究机会的报告。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。