Electronics, computing, and information technology

To function, quantum computers need to be kept very cold – just a few degrees above absolute zero. Now, researchers at Northeastern University, the University of California, Berkeley, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, have shown that one day, it might be possible to run quantum computers at room temperature.

Scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Central Florida have demonstrated that small changes in the isotopic content of two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor materials can influence their optical and electronic properties. The scientists grew 2D crystals of atomically thin molybdenum disulfide using molybdenum atoms of different masses. They noticed small shifts in the color of light emitted by the crystals after they were stimulated by light.

Researchers from Columbia University and the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, have used commercially available tabletop lasers to create tiny, atomically sharp nanostructures, or nanopatterns, in samples of a layered two-dimensional (2D) material. Rather than damaging the underlying atomic structure, the lasers broke the crystal lattice cleanly apart. According to Cecilia Chen, a scientist who led this study, the effect was visible under the microscope and looked like unzipping a zipper.

Scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Texas at Dallas, and  the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, have created a “five-lane superhighway” for electrons in a material called rhombohedral graphene, which is composed of five layers of graphene stacked in a specific overlapping order. In October 2023, the scientists had shown that rhombohedral graphene could allow the unimpeded movement of electrons around the edge of the material but not through the middle.

Researchers from North Carolina State University and Texas A&M University have created materials that are stiff and can insulate against heat. This combination of properties is unusual and holds promise for the development of thermal insulation coatings for electronic devices. The researchers were working with a subset of a class of materials called two-dimensional hybrid organic-inorganic perovskites (2D HOIP). The researchers found at least three distinct 2D HOIP materials that became less thermally conductive as their stiffness increased.

Engineers from Columbia University, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the University of Montreal in Canada, and the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, have shown that an oxygen-free chemical vapor deposition (CVD) method can create high-quality graphene samples at scale. Their work directly demonstrates how trace oxygen affects the growth rate of graphene and, for the first time, identifies the link between oxygen and graphene quality.

Researchers from Purdue University and ShanghaiTech University in China have developed a patent-pending method to synthesize high-quality, layered perovskite nanowires with large aspect ratios and tunable organic-inorganic chemical compositions. Layered metal halide perovskites, commonly called 2D perovskites, grow into large, thin sheets, but growth of one-dimensional forms of the materials is limited. The new method uses organic templating molecules that break the in-plane symmetry of layered perovskites and induce one-dimensional growth through secondary bonding interactions.

A Stanford University research team has used a 3D nanoprinting technique to produce Archimedean truncated tetrahedrons (ATTs). ATTs, micrometer-scale tetrahedrons with trimmed tips, have been theorized as having geometries that could produce phase-shifting materials, but are challenging to create in the real world. 3D printing could allow for precise control of particle shape and geometry to produce materials with novel physical properties.

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have found that neutrons can be made to cling to nanoparticles called quantum dots, which are made up of tens of thousands of atomic nuclei, held there by the strong force. Until this new work, nobody thought that neutrons might actually stick to the materials they were probing. “The fact that [the neutrons] can be trapped by the materials, nobody seems to know about that,” said Ju Li, one of the scientists involved in this study. “We were surprised that this exists.”

Researchers from the University of California, Berkeley, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Berkeley Lab, and the National Institute for Materials Science in Tsukuba, Japan, have taken the first atomic-resolution images and demonstrated electrical control of a chiral interface state – an exotic quantum phenomenon that could help researchers advance quantum computing and energy-efficient electronics.