Program Summary
The Topological Excitations in Electronics program aims to demonstrate the utility of topological excitations in various applications including memory, logic, sensors, and quantum information processing. Developing the ability to design materials with new controllable functionalities is crucial for the future of the Nation’s economic, energy, and defense security.
An opportunity exists at the intersection of topology and condensed matter physics where a rich and robust platform emerges for studying novel ground states and quasiparticles with properties beyond that of simple electrons. Many such excitations have topological properties that can be leveraged to engineer superior (e.g., low power and more stable) characteristics compared to the conventionally used charge and spin degrees of freedom. New materials that display novel spin-charge coupling and quantum coherent properties driven by topology at surfaces/interfaces have enormous potential for low power, spin-based, charge based, and quantum coherent technology.
The development of this new approach has the prospect of overcoming the natural limits faced by current device technology (e.g., superparamagnetism) and of creating entirely new forms of computation and other applications. For example, topological magnetic skyrmions are promising for low-power memory and/or logic architectures due to their small size and potential for manipulation using ultra-low current densities. On the other hand, topological quantum computation offers revolutionary breakthroughs in coherence stability. Various materials heterostructures may be leveraged to implement robust quantum logic. Devices based on this phenomenon have the possibility to revolutionize the understanding of quantum matter and materials.