Properties of Majorana fermions in topological superconductors

拓扑超导体中马约拉纳费米子的性质

• 批准号: 229545-2013
• 负责人: Tanaka, Kaori
• 金额: $ 1.82万
• 依托单位: University of Saskatchewan
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2017-01-01 至 2018-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=633520
• 关键词: Properties; Majorana; fermions; topological; superconductors

Year 2011 marked the centennial anniversary of the discovery of superconductivity -- the flow of electric currents without resistance below a certain temperature -- but in the worldwide race for finding superconducting materials at ever higher temperature, new superconductors continue to emerge. The discovery of a new class of materials that exhibit the so-called topological superconductivity and have a high potential for applications in nanoelectronics only few years ago has opened up a brand-new exciting field in condensed matter research and materials science. One of the unusual features of topological superconductivity that makes this field significant is the possible existence of Majorana fermions -- elementary particles which may hold a key to unravelling the symmetry that governs the universe, but remain hypothetical to this day. Creating Majorana fermions in condensed matter systems will be a breakthrough not only in fundamental physics, but also for computer technology, as Majorana fermions can be used to realise fault-tolerant quantum computation.The major goal of the proposed research is to have a comprehensive understanding of the properties of Majorana fermions in topological superconducting states. It is essential to understand how they can be created and stabilised, and how to control and manipulate them, so as to design solid state devices that can be used as qubits for quantum computing. The proposed research also aims to explore materials that can be turned into a topological superconductor. To expedite the research projects in this very competitive field, the powerful technique of massively parallel computation using graphics cards will be utilised.

2011年是超导现象发现一百周年，超导现象是指在一定温度下电流的流动没有电阻，但在世界范围内寻找更高温度下超导材料的竞赛中，新的超导体不断出现。几年前，一类具有拓扑超导性并在纳米电子学中具有巨大应用潜力的新材料的发现，为凝聚态研究和材料科学开辟了一个崭新的领域。拓扑超导性的一个不寻常的特征，使这个领域的重要性是马约拉纳费米子的可能存在-基本粒子可能持有解开宇宙对称性的关键，但仍然假设到今天。在凝聚态系统中产生Majorana费米子不仅是基础物理学的一个突破，而且也是计算机技术的一个突破，因为Majorana费米子可以用来实现容错量子计算。拟议研究的主要目标是全面了解拓扑超导态中Majorana费米子的性质。必须了解它们如何被创建和稳定，以及如何控制和操纵它们，以便设计可用作量子计算量子位的固态设备。拟议的研究还旨在探索可以变成拓扑超导体的材料。为了加快这个竞争激烈的领域的研究项目，将利用强大的大规模并行计算技术，使用图形卡。