Condensed and Living Matter Seminar: “Epitaxially engineered hybrid materials for quantum technologies”

Nitin Samarth

Verne M. Willaman Professor of Physics & Professor of Materials Science/Engineering, Penn State University

Research Synopsis:

The synthesis of complex epitaxial quantum materials allows the exploration of emergent phenomena arising from the interplay between factors such as electron-electron correlations, broken symmetry, spin-orbit coupling, electron-phonon coupling, and topological order. This provides exciting opportunities for engineering quantum materials that can be potentially exploited for quantum technologies, including quantum computing, quantum sensing, and quantum communications. We provide an overview of a program centered on the epitaxial synthesis of hybrid quantum materials that interface superconductivity, magnetism, and quantum states in semiconductors with an eye on applications in quantum technologies. We first focus on emergent superconductivity in van der Waals (vdW) heterostructures grown by molecular beam epitaxy. These epitaxial heterostructures reveal a concurrence of superconductivity, ferromagnetism, and topological states [1,2], providing attractive wafer-scale vdW platforms for developing non-reciprocal devices for superconducting electronics and, in an aspirational sense, serving as topological quantum computation platforms. Second, we discuss pathways for engineering B-doped diamond as an attractive platform for quantum integration [3]. In this context, we are interested in understanding fundamental aspects of superconductivity in heavily B-doped diamond films grown by microwave plasma chemical vapor deposition. Transport measurements of these superconducting films with superconducting transition temperature around 3 K reveal signatures of an emergent hidden anisotropic order, a fundamental understanding of which is important for exploiting superconducting diamond for quantum technologies [4].