Quantum Devices in Topologically Non-Trivial Electronic Systems

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The last ten years have seen an explosion in the potential for topology to affect our everyday lives through electronics. When many of us think of topology, we think of a Mobius strip demonstration in high school, or an esoteric branch of mathematics, but in fact several recent discoveries have connected these abstract concepts with applications that may change the way electronics and information processing works in the future. For example, so-called topological insulators may be developed that enable computer chips to run with markedly lower energy loss. An even more revolutionary connection between topology and electronics is the recent theoretical developments, and experimental hints, that new kinds of particles can be created in a table-top device that have very counterintuitive--but useful--topological characteristics. These would be particles like electrons, but unlike electrons they would retain a memory of the paths they have followed in the past. Take two of these particles, and move one around the other so it comes back to the same place. The particles look the same, but both particles' quantum mechanical states have completely changed due just to this looping operation. If these predictions turn out to be true, it will open new avenues for quantum computing that do not suffer from the same challenges of current approaches. Here, we propose a head-on assault on the challenge of bringing topology to bear in electronics. Working closely with the two top groups in the world in this area, we aim in five years to make the first electronic devices whose operation depends on particles with non-trivial topologies like those described above.