Quantum Science and Engineering at Cornell
Cornell’s Ithaca campus is home to a broad range of investigations into the quantum-mechanical nature of our world and universe, as well as the study of how to harness effects that are uniquely quantum mechanical for producing new technology in computing, communication, and sensing.
This website serves as a central source of information about who is working on quantum science and engineering at Cornell, what research areas we cover, and what quantum-related events are taking place.
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News and Breakthroughs
‘Bottling’ human intuition for AI-led materials discovery
Many properties of the world’s most advanced materials are beyond the reach of quantitative modeling. Understanding them also requires a human expert’s reasoning and intuition, which can’t be replicated by even the most powerful artificial intelligence, mixed with fortuitous accident, according to Eun-Ah Kim, the Hans A. Bethe Professor of physics in the College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Cornell-led National Science Foundation AI-Materials Institute.
Kim and collaborators have developed a machine-learning model that encapsulates and quantifies the valuable intuition of human experts in the quest to discover new quantum materials. The model, Materials Expert-Artificial Intelligence (ME-AI), “bottles” this intuition into descriptors that predict the functional property of a material. The team used the method to solve a quantum materials problem.
Cornell–IBM collaboration advances quantum computing
The quantum computing revolution draws ever nearer, but the need for a computer that makes correctable errors continues to hold it back.
Through a collaboration with IBM led by Cornell, researchers have brought that revolution one step closer, achieving two major breakthroughs. First, they demonstrated an error-resistant implementation of universal quantum gates, the essential building blocks of quantum computation. Second, they showcased the power of a topological quantum computer in solving hard problems that a conventional computer couldn’t manage.
An international collaboration between researchers at IBM, Cornell, Harvard University and the Weizman Institute of Science demonstrated, for the first time, the ability to encode information by braiding – moving in a particular order – Fibonacci string net condensate (Fib SNC) anyons, which are exotic quasi-particles, in two dimensional space.
Physicists take step toward a holy grail for electron spins
For decades, ferromagnetic materials have driven technologies like magnetic hard drives, magnetic random access memories and oscillators. But antiferromagnetic materials, if only they could be harnessed, hold out even greater promise: ultra-fast information transfer and communications at much higher frequencies – a “holy grail” for physicists.
Now, researchers have taken a meaningful step towards utilizing antiferromagnets for new technologies. In “Spin-filter tunneling detection of antiferromagnetic resonance with electrically-tunable damping,” published July 10 in Science, they describe their innovative approach for both detecting and controlling the motion of spins within antiferromagnets using 2D antiferromagnetic materials and tunnel junctions.
If you’re working on quantum research at Cornell and would like to contribute material to this website, please email quantum@cornell.edu.