Four researchers at the Cornell University received $3.5 million grants from the U.S. Department of Energy to conduct research on quantum information science.
The grants were extended under the Department’s Basic Energy Science (BES) program to lay the ground for the next generation of computing and information processing.
The Cornell research team will conduct a study on solving the problems concerning solid-state quantum information technologies by coupling diamond nitrogen-vacancy centers, a collective excitation of spins within a magnet. The project, with University of Iowa and Ohio State University as collaborators, received $1.5 million in department funding.
“We want to know if high-quality magnetic nanostructures, placed in close proximity to nitrogen-vacancy centers, can form the missing quantum link,” said Greg Fuchs, associate professor of applied and engineering physics.
“To do that, all of the parts will have to work well, and the entire thing will have to be cold – only about a tenth of a degree above absolute zero.”
Another “Planar Systems for Quantum Information” project led by Cornell’s Jie Shan, professor of applied and engineering physics received $1.95 million in grants to conduct research. Researchers led by Shan will study transition metal dichalcogenides, that has the potential of storing and communicating quantum bits of information.
“In these materials, each handedness of light couples only to one of the two independent valleys,” Shan said. “The valleys and spins are coupled, providing the possibility of stabilizing excitations within the valley. This is a largely unexploited and unstudied quantum degree of freedom in solids.”
Pertinently, Cornell is the only university to receive the sanction of grants for multiple projects under the 2018 BES Quantum Information Science Research Awards program.