A new superconductor material could greatly improve the reliability of quantum computers, scientists say.
The electrical resistance of materials typically decreases as they are cooled. But some materials, called superconductors, maintain a gradually declining electrical resistance until they are cooled to their critical cut-off temperature, at which point their resistance becomes zero. Some types of superconductors, such as topological superconductors, can be used to transmit quantum data.
They observed that the quantum states at the interface contained well-defined polarization (the quantum state of a subatomic molecule). This could allow the excitations of electrons to be potentially used as quantum bits (qubits) in a quantum computer.
The surface of the gold film became superconducting through the "proximity effect." This effect can occur when a non-superconducting material is placed near a superconductor, which suppresses the critical temperature of the superconductor. Being a chiral material, which cannot mirror its molecular properties, trigonal tellurium's quantum properties cannot be superimposed on its physical mirror image.
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