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

非技术描述：该项目旨在创造用于生产量子比特的超薄材料-量子比特-量子计算机的基本构建块。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，由氧化的过渡金属制成。这些材料对量子比特非常感兴趣，因为它们有望吸收光并将能量储存很长一段时间，其中每一量子吸收的光都作为一个量子比特发挥作用。这个项目涉及制造和表征材料的实验者和设计和建模材料的理论家之间的密切合作。该项目评估超薄TMO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。该项目还提供了重大的教育和培训影响。两名研究生在必要的科学和方法论方面接受了熟练的培训，在一个将理论和实验结合在一起的协作环境中工作。此外，每年有两名暑期本科生作为合作研究团队的一部分接受指导，共同研究关键的科学问题。技术描述：该项目的拟议活动包括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(2DTMO)，它可以承载用作量子信息平台的强束缚激子。第一性原理理论通过多体格林函数方法筛选了多个2DTMO的能量稳定性、结构以及电学和光学性质。然后用分子束外延生长最有希望的候选材料，并用同步加速器和光致发光方法对它们的结构和光学性质进行表征。虽然2DTMO的生长具有挑战性，但与石墨烯或过渡金属二卤化物等其他2D材料相比，它们具有优势，因为2DTMO具有广泛可调的化学成分，可以以可扩展的方式生产，并且在将2D材料暴露在氧气和水中的典型操作和设备处理环境中通常环境稳定。该项目的广泛影响是：(I)两名研究生正在接受培训，以成为量子信息材料物理方面的专家；(Ii)两名本科生暑期学生作为合作研究团队的一部分参与了这项工作；以及(Iii)2DTMO的成功设计，它承载了长寿命量子比特，标志着量子计算材料设计的一个里程碑，引起了材料物理学家和量子设备研究人员的极大兴趣。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.