Physicists at the University of Texas at Austin and The City College of New York receive a highly competitive $1.1 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to explore exotic phases of matter in atomically thin quantum materials. The project is only one of five selected by the foundation this year in the science and engineering category; five more were selected for medical grants.
Coupling of atomically thin quantum materials in cavities to be explored under the Keck Foundation grant. Image credit: Edoardo Baldini
Vinod Menon, professor of physics in the Division of Science, is the CCNY scientist on the team that also includes UT Austin’s Allan H. MacDonald, Sid W. Richardson Foundation Regents Chair in Physics; and assistant professor of physics Edoardo Baldini.
The grant will support three years of research. Over this period, Menon will lead the design and implementation of advanced resonators operating in the infrared to engineer vacuum fluctuations. MacDonald will establish the theoretical framework for exploring atomically thin materials within quantum cavities, while Baldini will investigate the emergence of various phases of matter using state-of-the-art spectroscopy and microscopy tools.
Over the past decade, researchers have designed and built ultrathin materials that exhibit exotic quantum properties that could be useful in a range of applications from quantum computers to transmitting electricity without losing energy. But these quantum properties are often highly unstable, only lasting for very short timescales or at extremely low temperatures.
Baldini’s lab will develop a new approach to possibly stabilize the useful properties of these materials for far longer and at higher temperatures. This approach involves creating an environment around the material – called a quantum cavity – that harnesses fluctuations in the vacuum electromagnetic field to stabilize the material’s properties. These quantum cavities developed by Menon’s lab will operate in the infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum and integrate atomically thin materials that host exotic quantum phases. The researchers will specifically target superconductivity, a state in which electrons propagate without losing energy. They will also explore “fractional Chern insulator states,” where electrons don’t exhibit their usual electric charge—called the elementary charge—but instead some fraction of it.
Source: CCNY