Abstract
Recently, there has been a growing realization of how topology of the quantum states can bring about new states of matter that host exotic particles beyond the more familiar fermions and bosons in nature. One example is that of an exotic particle named after Ettore Majorana who famously proposed in early days of quantum mechanics that there can be particles that are their own antiparticles. Now we have discovered how to engineer materials in which such exotic (quasi) particles emerge and use devices and high-resolution microscopes to spot them. It turns out that Majoranas in quantum materials are even more exotic than Majorana himself could have imagined. Their exotic behavior could make building a fault tolerant quantum computer possible. In this lecture, the speaker will describe a number of experiments in which Majoranas have been spotted, in particular those that can detect them directly using atomic scale microscopy. These techniques can also be used to spot other exotic Majorana-like particles, known as non-Abelian quasi-particles, and he will describe effort in this direction. He will also describe the experimental challenges in braiding such particles, that if demonstrated would not establish a new physical principal, but would also lay the foundation for a new type of quantum computation.
About the speaker
Prof. Ali Yazdani received his PhD in Applied Physics from the Stanford University in 1995. He joined the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as an Assistant Professor of Physics in 1997 and moved to Princeton University in 2005, where he is currently the Class of 1909 Professor of Physics.
Prof. Yazdani’s research focuses on the development and application of novel experimental methods to directly visualize exotic electronic phenomena in solids. Through these studies he has been at the forefront of researching many novel electronic phenomena in condensed matter systems.
Prof. Yazdani has been recognized for his research accomplishments. He was elected a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences (2019), Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2015), Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2012), and the American Physical Society (2009). He has also received a Humboldt Research Award (2014) and an US National Science Foundation CAREER Award (1999).
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