Quantum Devices in Topologically Non-Trivial Electronic Systems

在过去的十年里，拓扑通过电子设备影响我们日常生活的可能性出现了爆炸性增长。当我们中的许多人想到拓扑学时，我们会想到高中的莫比乌斯带状演示，或者是一个深奥的数学分支，但实际上，最近的几项发现将这些抽象概念与可能改变未来电子和信息处理工作方式的应用程序联系在一起。例如，可以开发所谓的拓扑绝缘体，使计算机芯片能够以显著较低的能量损耗运行。 拓扑学和电子学之间更具革命性的联系是最近的理论发展和实验暗示，即可以在桌面设备中创造出新类型的粒子，这种设备具有非常违反直觉但有用的拓扑特征。它们将是像电子一样的粒子，但与电子不同的是，它们将保留对它们过去走过的路径的记忆。拿出两个这样的粒子，绕着另一个移动，这样它就会回到同一个位置。这两个粒子看起来是一样的，但仅仅因为这种循环操作，两个粒子的量子力学状态就完全改变了。如果这些预测最终成为现实，它将为量子计算开辟新的途径，而不会受到当前方法所面临的同样挑战。 在这里，我们提议对将拓扑学应用于电子行业的挑战进行正面攻击。我们与这一领域的两家世界顶尖公司密切合作，目标是在五年内制造出第一批电子设备，其运行依赖于具有上述非平凡拓扑的粒子。

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.