Researchers Quantify Disorder in 2D Materials to Build Better Quantum Technologies

(Harvard.edu) The next wave of quantum, optical and electronic devices will be built from powerful two-dimensional materials. These materials can host room temperature qubits thereby enabling solid-state quantum technologies that are inherently more powerful than their classical counterparts.
If researchers are going to build new devices out of 2-D materials, they need to understand where their atoms are and how tiny imperfections change their material and electronic properties.
Now, researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory have combined experimental and theoretical techniques to measure atomic positions of all the atoms in a 2D material and calculate how the arrangement impacts the electronic properties of various regions of the system.
This research was funded by the Department of Defense Army Research Office MURI on Ab Initio Quantum Materials (AIQM) and the Betty and Gordon Moore Foundation. PN is a Moore Inventor Fellow. Scanning transmission electron microscopy experiments were conducted at the Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences, a Department of Energy Office of Science user facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.