Wednesday, December 9, 12:00 noon
Frist Multipurpose Room B
Toward Quantum Computing
Zahid Hasan
Imagine a computer that made direct use of quantum mechanical phenomena. Such a machine would likely operate exponentially faster than our present computers.
Zahid Hasan is leading an international scientific collaboration that has observed an exciting and strange behavior in electrons' spin within a new material that could be harnessed to transform computing and electronics. The team believes that the discovery is an advancement in the fundamental physics of quantum systems and could lead to significant advances in electronics, computing and information science.
The team has been searching for a material whose atoms, when placed in certain configurations, would trigger electrons to produce exotic "quantum" effects. In the Feb. 13 issue of Science, the team reported this behavior in a carefully constructed crystal made of an antimony alloy laced with bismuth. The behavior involves a strange form of rotation that could potentially transform computing and storage.
Speaker Bio: Zahid Hasan is an Associate Professor of Physics at Princeton. He is interested in the fundamental physics of quantum condensed-matter systems. His research is focused on the frontier aspects of these areas of fundamental physics such as the quantum Hall-like effect without external magnetic field, non-BCS superconductivity in correlated materials and fractionalized phases in higher dimensions as well as the development of novel instrumentation capability necessary to address these issues.
