Quantum materials

The WQI supports materials research aimed at creating materials with new, non-intuitive properties that are of both fundamental interest and have technological importance. Precision growth experiments, where different elemental species are deposited with single atomic layer resolution, are used to create new materials with well-controlled electronic and magnetic interactions. Those interactions can lead to the formation of new phases of matter where, for example, electrical current can flow either with zero resistance or as a viscous fluid, where magnetism can be controlled with applied electric fields, or that emit light with very narrow linewidth. In some cases, material lattice structures that cannot exist in nature are fabricated using top-down approaches, where a material is carved with an electron beam to create artificial materials called “meta-materials.”