{"id":474,"date":"2021-06-21T16:18:36","date_gmt":"2021-06-21T15:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/physastro\/?p=474"},"modified":"2023-03-21T16:19:18","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T16:19:18","slug":"discovery-of-a-rare-superconductor-may-be-vital-for-the-future-of-quantum-computing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/physastro\/2021\/06\/21\/discovery-of-a-rare-superconductor-may-be-vital-for-the-future-of-quantum-computing\/","title":{"rendered":"Discovery of a rare superconductor may be vital for the future of quantum computing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Research led by Kent and the\u00a0STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory<\/a>\u00a0has resulted in the discovery of a new rare topological superconductor, LaPt3<\/sub>P. This discovery may be of huge importance to the future operations of quantum computers.<\/p>\n

Superconductors are vital materials able to conduct electricity without any resistance when cooled below a certain temperature, making them highly desirable in a society needing to reduce its energy consumption.<\/p>\n

They\u00a0manifest quantum properties on the scale of everyday objects, making them highly attractive candidates for building computers which use quantum physics to store data and perform computing operations, and can vastly outperform even the best supercomputers in certain tasks. As a result, there is an increasing demand from leading tech companies like Google, IBM and Microsoft to make quantum computers on an industrial scale using superconductors.<\/p>\n

However, the elementary units of quantum computers (qubits) are extremely sensitive and lose their quantum properties due to electromagnetic fields, heat and collisions with air molecules. Protection from these can be achieved by making more resilient qubits using a special class of superconductors called\u00a0topological superconductors<\/em>\u00a0which in addition to being superconductors also host protected metallic states on their boundaries or surfaces.<\/p>\n

Topological superconductors, such as LaPt3<\/sub>P, newly discovered through muon spin relaxation experiments and extensive theoretical analysis, are exceptionally rare and are of tremendous value to the future industry of quantum computing.<\/p>\n

To ensure its properties are sample and instrument independent, two different sets of samples were prepared in the\u00a0University of Warwick<\/a>\u00a0and in\u00a0ETH Zurich<\/a>. Muon experiments were then performed in two different types of muon facilities: in the ISIS Pulsed Neutron and Muon Source in the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and in\u00a0PSI, Switzerland<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Dr Sudeep Kumar Ghosh<\/a>, Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at Kent\u2019s\u00a0School of Physical Sciences<\/a>\u00a0and Principle Investigator said: \u2018This discovery of the topological superconductor LaPt3<\/sub>P has tremendous potential in the field of quantum computing. Discovery of such a rare and desired component demonstrates the importance of\u00a0muon<\/a>\u00a0research for the everyday world around us.\u2019<\/p>\n

The paper \u2018Chiral singlet superconductivity in the weakly correlated metal LaPt3<\/sub>P<\/em><\/a>\u2019 is published in\u00a0Nature Communications\u00a0<\/em>(University of Kent: Dr. Sudeep K. Ghosh; STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory: Dr. Pabitra K. Biswas, Dr. Adrian D. Hillier; University of Warwick \u2013 Dr. Geetha Balakrishnan, Dr. Martin R. Lees, Dr. Daniel A. Mayoh; Paul Scherrer Institute: Dr. Charles Baines; Zhejiang University of Technology: Dr. Xiaofeng Xu; ETH Zurich: Dr. Nikolai D. Zhigadlo; Southwest University of Science and Technology: Dr. Jianzhou Zhao).<\/p>\n

DOI:\u00a0https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1038\/s41467-021-22807-8<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Research led by Kent and the\u00a0STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory\u00a0has resulted in the discovery of a new rare topological superconductor, LaPt3P. This discovery may be of … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40702,"featured_media":475,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[99361,20367,70],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/physastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/physastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/physastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/physastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/40702"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/physastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/physastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":476,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/physastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474\/revisions\/476"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/physastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/physastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/physastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/physastro\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}