Co-investigators Pablo Jarillo-Herrero , Nuh Gedik , Liang Fu , Leonid Levitov , Jagadeesh Moodera , Tomas Palacios , Jing Kong
Project Website http://comm-cms-1.mit.edu/newsoffice/2013/center-for-integrated-quantum-materia…
Project Start Date October 2013
Project End Date September 2018
MIT physics professor Raymond C. Ashoori and a team of MIT researchers will play key roles of the Center for Integrated Quantum Materials, led by Harvard University and funded with a $20 million National Science Foundation (NSF) Science and Technology Center program award.
The team will work with graphene, a one-atom thick form of carbon; topological insulators, a class of materials on which electrons move, on the surface, in the directions of their individual electronic spins; and nitrogen vacancy centers in diamond, which can store quantum information and be readily probed optically.
MIT will receive about $1 million a year, for five years. The MIT award will be managed by the Materials Processing Center.
The project’s principal investigator is Robert M. Westervelt, the Mallinckrodt Professor of Applied Physics and of Physics at Harvard. Besides Ashoori, other co-principal investigators are Gary L. Harris, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Howard University; and Carol Lynn Alpert, director of strategic projects at the Museum of Science in Boston.
Other MIT researchers involved in the project include Department of Physics faculty Pablo Jarillo-Herrero, Nuh Gedik, Liang Fu, Leonid S. Levitov and Jagadeesh Moodera (senior scientist); Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science faculty Tomas Palacios and Jing Kong; and mechanical engineering professor Seth Lloyd.
The researchers’ proposal to NSF was one of three selected from a national competition that started with more than 250 pre-proposals. The project, based at Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) also includes a network of four-year colleges, including Wellesley College, Gallaudet University, Olin College and Mount Holyoke College; and six community colleges, including Bunker Hill Community College. The educational component will focus on preparing these students for graduate school.
Rotating seminars will bring students and faculty from the different schools together. There will also be corporate partnerships with BASF Corporation on graphene research, and with Element Six Ltd. and Epitaxial Technologies on diamond growth research.