Abstract: 

The building block for quantum computers is qubit, which is a physical two-state system that has been realized in superconducting Josephson junctions, ion traps, polarized photons, Nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond, quantum dots, etc. All existing qubits are confronted with a formidable challenge posed by decoherence, due to the interactions between quibit and surrounding environment. It was proposed that topological qubits made up of Majorana zero modes (MZMs) are largely free of decoherence and thus are very promissing for realizing fault-tolerant topological quantum computation. In this talk, I shall first introduce the basic properties of MZMs and the principle of topological quantum computation, then a brief review of the history on engineering and detecting MZMs in various platforms will be given. In particular, recent theoretical and experimental progresses on exploring MZMs in semiconductor-superconductor hybrid systems will be introduced.

 

About the speaker:

Dr. Zhan Cao received B.S. and Ph.D in 2011 and 2017, respectively, from School of Physical Science and Technology, Lanzhou University. From 2017 to 2019, he was a postdoctoral research fellow in Southern University of Science of Technology, China. In 2019, he joined Beijing Academy of Quantum Information Sciences as a research assistant. Dr. Zhan Cao mainly focus on the quantum transport theories in topological superconductors and quantum dot systems.