Double, Double, Superconductivity, and Trouble
However, there is no "fire burn and cauldron bubble" here because PQI members don't need a magic potion to be double featured in the Nature Physics July Focus editorial highlighting emergent superconductivity. Out of the four articles in this discussion, Sergey Frolov and Jeremy Levy each contributed a perspective on the current status and trajectory of research in superconductivity.
The perspective from Sergey and collaborators, Topological superconductivity in hybrid devices, details special features found in topological superconductors and emergent properties, such as theorized Majorana quasiparticles and phases. Unambiguously inducing and controlling Majorana phases in superconductors remains a yet to be solved challenge for researchers, but progress has been made.
The U.S. Army Research Office (ARO) in collaboration with the National Security Agency (NSA) is soliciting proposals for research in High Performance Superconducting Qubit Systems. This BAA has two primary goals; (a) substantially improve the fidelity of one and two-qubit operations over current state-of-the-art performance, and (b) design and test qubits with built-in error protection. While proposals that advance both primary goals in an integrated approach are encouraged, proposers may focus on either goal individually, given the state-of-the-art of their approach. There are two types of proposals with different research scopes covered in this announcement: 1. High performance superconducting qubit systems a. High Fidelity 2-qubit gates b. Error protected qubits 2. Key supporting technology to high-performance superconducting qubits
A research team led by PQI faculty Jeremy Levy has discovered electrons that can "swing dance". This unique electronic behavior can potentially lead to new families of quantum devices.