Even the fastest supercomputers struggle with certain complex tasks, such as discovering new medicines or breaking advanced encryption. Quantum computers could one day handle these challenges, but they depend on rare materials known as topological superconductors that are extremely difficult to create and control.
Researchers at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) and West Virginia University have now demonstrated a practical way to bring these materials within reach. By slightly adjusting a chemical formula, they were able to alter how large numbers of electrons interact inside the material, guiding it into a topological superconducting state.
The team focused on ultra thin films made from two elements, tellurium and selenium. By carefully changing the proportion of these elements, they discovered they could push the material from one quantum phase to another, including the sought after topological superconductor phase.
Their results, published in Nature Communications, show that modifying the tellurium to selenium ratio changes how strongly electrons influence one another. These electron correlations act like a fine tuning mechanism, allowing scientists to deliberately engineer unusual quantum states.
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