• HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
Thursday, October 30, 2025
BIOENGINEER.ORG
No Result
View All Result
  • Login
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
  • HOME
  • NEWS
  • EXPLORE
    • CAREER
      • Companies
      • Jobs
        • Lecturer
        • PhD Studentship
        • Postdoc
        • Research Assistant
    • EVENTS
    • iGEM
      • News
      • Team
    • PHOTOS
    • VIDEO
    • WIKI
  • BLOG
  • COMMUNITY
    • FACEBOOK
    • INSTAGRAM
    • TWITTER
No Result
View All Result
Bioengineer.org
No Result
View All Result
Home NEWS Science News Chemistry

Microsoft and University of Copenhagen collaboration yields promising material for quantum computing

Bioengineer by Bioengineer
September 16, 2020
in Chemistry
Reading Time: 3 mins read
0
IMAGE
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterShare on LinkedinShare on RedditShare on Telegram

IMAGE

Credit: Charles Marcus

Researchers at the Microsoft Quantum Materials Lab and the University of Copenhagen, working closely together, have succeeded in realizing an important and promising material for use in a future quantum computer. For this end, the researchers have to create materials that hold the delicate quantum information and protect it from decoherence.

The so called topological states seem to hold this promise, but one of the challenges has been that a large magnetic field had to be applied. With the new material, it has become possible to realize topological states without the magnetic field. “The result is one of many new developments needed before an actual quantum computer is realized, but along the way better understanding of how quantum systems work, and might be applied to medicine, catalysts or materials, will be some of the positive side effects to this research”, Professor Charles Marcus explains. The scientific article is now published in Nature Physics

Topological states are promising – but there are many challenges along the way

Topological states in condensed-matter systems have generated immense excitement and activity in the last decade, including the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physics. There is a natural fault-tolerance of the so called Majorana zero modes, which makes topological states ideally suited for quantum computing. But progress in realizing topological Majorana zero modes has been hampered by the requirement of large magnetic fields to induce the topological phase, which comes at a cost: the system must be operated in the bore of a large magnet, and every topological segment must be precisely aligned along the direction of field.

The new results report a key signature of topological superconductivity, but now in the absence of an applied magnetic field. A thin layer of the material europium sulfide (EuS), whose internal magnetism naturally aligns with the axis of the nanowire and induces an effective magnetic field (more than ten thousand times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field) in the superconductor and semiconductor components, appears sufficient to induce the topological superconducting phase.

Professor Charles Marcus explains the progress this way: “The combination of three components into a single crystal – semiconductor, superconductor, ferromagnetic insulator–a triple hybrid–is new. It’s great news that it forms a topological superconductor at low temperature. This gives us a new path to making components for topological quantum computing, and gives physicists a new physical system to explore”.

The new results will soon be applied to engineering the qubit

The next step will be to apply these results in order to get closer to realizing the actual working qubit. So far the researchers have worked on the physics and now they are about to embark on engineering an actual device. This device, the qubit, is essentially to a quantum computer what the transistor is to the ordinary computer we know today. It is the unit performing the calculations, but this is where the comparison ends. The potential for the performance of a quantum computer is so large that today we are not even really able to imagine the possibilities.

Collaboration is the key to success

Scientific results are more often than not the work of a close collaboration between many people. The myth about the lonely genius going “Heureka!”, is truly a myth. In this case, Professor Peter Krogstrup, Scientific Director at the Microsoft Materials Lab and Yu Liu, postdoc at the Niels Bohr Institute grew the materials, Saulius Vaitiekenas, Lead experimentalist at the Microsoft Quantum Materials Lab carried out the measurements and built the devices, and Professor Charles Marcus at the Niels Bohr Institute, along with everyone else, interpreted the ensuing data. Charles Marcus says: “There may be different roles and competences involved, but the process of collaborating on science is most times a very fluid and open ended process”.

###

Media Contact
Charles Marcus
[email protected]

Original Source

https://www.nbi.ku.dk/english/news/news20/microsoft-and-university-of-copenhagen-collaboration-yields-promising-material-for-quantum-computing/

Related Journal Article

http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41567-020-1017-3

Tags: Atomic PhysicsAtomic/Molecular/Particle PhysicsChemistry/Physics/Materials SciencesComputer ScienceHardwareMaterialsNanotechnology/MicromachinesParticle PhysicsSuperconductors/Semiconductors
Share12Tweet8Share2ShareShareShare2

Related Posts

When Electrons Harmonize and Perceive Their Surroundings

When Electrons Harmonize and Perceive Their Surroundings

October 30, 2025
blank

Industry-Compatible Methods Enable Superconducting Germanium Production

October 30, 2025

Harnessing Computational Power to Predict Optimal Ligands for Generating Reactive Alkyl Ketone Radicals in Organic Synthesis

October 30, 2025

Advancing Toward a Sustainable Approach for Ethylene Production

October 29, 2025
Please login to join discussion

POPULAR NEWS

  • Sperm MicroRNAs: Crucial Mediators of Paternal Exercise Capacity Transmission

    1291 shares
    Share 516 Tweet 322
  • Stinkbug Leg Organ Hosts Symbiotic Fungi That Protect Eggs from Parasitic Wasps

    312 shares
    Share 125 Tweet 78
  • ESMO 2025: mRNA COVID Vaccines Enhance Efficacy of Cancer Immunotherapy

    201 shares
    Share 80 Tweet 50
  • New Study Suggests ALS and MS May Stem from Common Environmental Factor

    136 shares
    Share 54 Tweet 34
/div>

About

We bring you the latest biotechnology news from best research centers and universities around the world. Check our website.

Follow us

Recent News

Physiotherapy Approaches for Post- and Long-COVID Care

Study Reveals Common Misconceptions Among Americans About Alcohol and Cancer Risk

Streamlined CRISPR Evaluation Boosts Rare Variant Discovery

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 67 other subscribers
  • Contact Us

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.

Welcome Back!

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Homepages
    • Home Page 1
    • Home Page 2
  • News
  • National
  • Business
  • Health
  • Lifestyle
  • Science

Bioengineer.org © Copyright 2023 All Rights Reserved.