New discovery of a rare superconductor may be vital for the future of quantum computing

Research led by the University of Kent and the STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory has resulted in the discovery of a new rare topological superconductor, LaPt3P. This discovery may be of huge importance to the future operations of quantum computers.

Superconductors manifest 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.

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 topological superconductors which in addition to being superconductors also host protected metallic states on their boundaries or surfaces. Topological superconductors, such as LaPt3P, 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.

Read more at EurekAlert!

Image Credit: Israel Palacio / Unsplash

-jk-