One-Dimensional Systems for Quantum Technology

Historically, enhancing compute capability has meant integrating ever more and ever smaller devices into both, the memory and the processors. However, such scaling has become much more difficult recently because of physical scaling limits. Yet despite a lot of innovative technologies in materials, devices and architectures, the speed of increasing the density of transistors has slowed down. This raises the fundamental question of what technology is next to speed up computing? At the same time the progress in technologies important for quantum computing has increased significantly over recent years. This has resulted also in an ambitious European Flagship initiative in quantum technologies to ensure Europe’s leading role in a technological revolution now under way. In that respect a large focus is put on qubit implementations based on superconducting Josephson junctions and ion traps based on their more advanced level of maturity for quantum computing. A big challenge is still to increase the number of gate operations or calculations possible until coherence is lost. In that regard topological quantum bits based on one dimensional (1D) systems are considered to play an important role in future quantum technology and the interest in those systems has significantly increased over the last five years. In particular Majorana fermions in nanowire hybrid systems as well as helical states are thought to be essential ingredients to future on-chip quantum information applications.

This seminar will concentrate on quantum transport in 1D systems and envisage to bring together the communities working on the hot and crucial topics of the field. Besides a focus on the topical Majorana fermions, a particular emphasis of the seminar will lie in correlations, which are especially strong in 1D and give rise to interesting effects like the mentioned helical phase, but also the famous 0.7-anomaly of short 1D constrictions (quantum point contacts), a transition from a Fermi- to a Luttinger liquid in clean and long wires, Wigner crystallization and more. These correlation effects are in competition with the formation of Majorana states where unambiguous proof is still a big focus of current research. The seminar will foster a lively discussion on the various 1D states of interest, their complex physics, their robustness and their suitability for on-chip quantum technology applications.

Seminar poster

The conference language will be English. The Wilhelm and Else Heraeus-Foundation bears the cost of full-board accommodation for all participants.