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Department of Physics Colloquium - Kavli Lecture

Monday, November 30, 2015 at 4:00pm to 5:00pm

Rockefeller Hall, Schwartz Auditorium
Central Campus

General Physics Colloquium, Dr. Leo Kouwenhoven, Delft

Refreshments from 3:30-3:50 pm

Title:  Majorana Fermions:  From Particle Physics on a Chip to Topological Quantum Computing

Host:  Paul McEuen

Poster available

Abstract:Majoranas can emerge as robust quasi-particles in properly engineered electronics devices. The needed ingredients include low-dimensional semiconductors with strong spin-orbit interaction and superconductivity. Within appropriate ranges of magnetic field and chemical potential a spin-less and charge-less quantum state emerges that is firmly pinned at zero energy. This zero energy state has all the experimental signatures of a Majorana bound state. Majoranas become particularly interesting when we can operate them as qubits since these are expected to be protected against many noise sources. This protection has a topological origin which persists as long as the global parity (i.e. even or odd total particle number) in the sample remains fixed. We have observed parity lifetimes of order a minute. Current research is developing superconducting circuits that allow for Majorana qubit operations. These operations involve braiding Majoranas, or exchanging pairs of Majoranas, which should demonstrate that their quantum statistics is non-Abelian.  

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Event Type

Seminar

Departments

Physics, LASSP

Website

http://www.physics.cornell.edu/

Contact E-Mail

sfc1@cornell.edu

Contact Name

Sue Sullivan

Contact Phone

607/255-7562

Speaker

Dr. Leo Kouwenhoven

Speaker Affiliation

Delft