EAGER: Enabling Quantum Leap: 2D metal oxides (2DTMOs) hosting strongly bound excitons

非技术描述：该项目旨在创造超薄材料来生产量子比特——量子比特——量子计算机的基本组成部分。我们感兴趣的材料是真正的二维材料，因为它们只有一个原子厚，由氧化过渡金属制成。这些材料对量子比特非常感兴趣，因为它们有望吸收光并长时间储存能量，其中每个吸收光的量子都作为单个量子比特发挥作用。该项目涉及制造和表征材料的实验人员与设计和建模材料的理论人员之间的密切合作。该项目评估超薄TMOs是否满足实现高保真量子比特所需的所有关键科学和技术特性。该项目还提供了重要的教育和培训影响。两名研究生在必要的科学和方法方面接受了专业培训，在理论和实验相结合的协作环境中工作。此外，每年有两名夏季本科生作为合作研究团队的一部分，在关键科学问题上进行指导。技术描述：本项目的拟议活动涉及理论和实验之间的合作，以设计和研究一类新的二维过渡金属氧化物（2DTMOs），该氧化物可以承载强束缚激子，用作量子信息平台。第一性原理理论利用多体格林函数方法筛选多种2DTMOs的能量稳定性、结构、电子和光学性质。然后使用分子束外延生长最有前途的候选材料，并使用同步加速器和光致发光方法对其结构和光学特性进行表征。虽然2DTMOs的生长具有挑战性，但与石墨烯或过渡金属二硫化物等其他2D材料相比，它们具有优势，因为2DTMOs具有广泛可调的化学性质，可以以可扩展的方式生产，并且在典型的操作和设备加工环境中通常是环境稳定的，将2D材料暴露于氧气和水中。该项目的更广泛影响是：(i)两名研究生正在接受培训，成为量子信息材料物理专家，（ii）两名本科生暑期学生作为合作研究团队的一部分参与工作，以及（iii）承载长寿命量子位的2DTMOs的成功设计标志着量子计算材料设计的里程碑，材料物理学家和量子器件研究人员非常感兴趣。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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。

Nontechnical description: This project aims to create ultra-thin materials for producing quantum bits - qubits - the basic building blocks for quantum computers. The materials of interest are truly two-dimensional in that they are only a single atom thick and are made from oxidized transition metals. These materials are of significant interest for qubits since they are expected to absorb light and store that energy for long periods of time, where each quantum of absorbed light functions as a single qubit. This project involves a close collaboration between experimenters who fabricate and characterize materials and theorists who design and model them. The project evaluates whether ultra-thin TMOs satisfy all the key scientific and technological properties needed for realizing high fidelity qubits. The project also provides significant educational and training impact. Two graduate students are expertly trained in the requisite science and methodology, working in a collaborative environment that brings together theory and experiment. In addition, two summer undergraduate students are mentored each year as part of collaborative research teams working on the key scientific questions. Technical description: The proposed activities for this project involve collaboration between theory and experiment to design and study a new class of two-dimensional transition metal oxides (2DTMOs) that can host strongly bound excitons for use as quantum information platforms. First principles theory screens multiple 2DTMOs for their energetic stability, structure, and electronic and optical properties by using many-body Green's function methods. The most promising candidate materials are then grown using molecular beam epitaxy and their structure and optical properties characterized using synchrotron and photoluminescence methods. While the growth of 2DTMOs is challenging, they have advantages over other 2D materials such as graphene or transition metal dichalcogenides in that 2DTMOs have widely tunable chemistries, can be produced in a scalable manner, and are generally environmentally stable in typical operating and device processing environments that expose the 2D materials to oxygen and water. The broader impacts of this project are: (i) two graduate students are being trained to become experts in materials physics for quantum information, (ii) two undergraduate summer students participate in the work as part of collaborative research teams, and (iii) the successful design of 2DTMOs that host long-lived qubits mark a milestone in materials design for quantum computation and are of significant interest to materials physicists and quantum device researchers.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.