Materials Science World Congress

Quantum Materials: The Emergent Class of Advanced Technologies

Quantum materials are a rapidly emergent class of materials whose properties quantum mechanical effects play a central, strongly correlating role. These materials display fascinating behaviors, such as superconductivity, topological states, and quantum entanglement, where unprecedented potentials of new technologies in quantum computing, and electronic and energy systems open up.

Among them all, the topological insulator proves to be one of the most promising. Such materials tend to be insulators at their interior but metallic conductors at their surfaces, and such a phenomenon becomes possible with quantum properties. This would potentially revolutionize electronics, making less loss in energy and even higher performance, efficient devices of the future. Topological insulators are also key for propelling quantum computing toward the generation of stable qubits leading to more robust quantum systems, whose errors can be mitigated.

The third exciting area is superconductors: These are materials that conduct electricity without resistance at very low temperatures. That enables them to be used much more strongly in applications for magnetic resonance imaging, particle accelerators, and quantum computers. High-temperature superconductors have been found, operating at temperatures substantially higher than conventional ones. New avenues in creating more energy-efficient power grids and advanced magnetics technologies were thereby opened.

Quantum materials play an important role in quantum computing, too. For example, two of the materials under scrutiny for building a more stable and efficient qubit - the basic building blocks of quantum computers - are quantum dots and Majorana fermions. Maybe we will see a revolution in computing: enabling much more powerful machines, vastly faster than today's supercomputers, able to solve problems far beyond the capacity of a classical computer.

Further research into quantum materials will certainly create new frontiers in the creation of unexampled innovations in technology, energy, and communications and will provide transformative solutions to some of the greatest challenges of the 21st century.