The ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” is at the forefront of an international effort to innovate the semiconductor industry while building a skilled U.S.-based workforce to design and manufacture chip technology. UPWARDS for the Future will support work already underway in the UW’s Washington Nanofabrication Faciliity. Video credit: Kiyomi Taguchi, UW News

The ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” is at the forefront of an international effort to innovate the semiconductor industry while building a skilled U.S.-based workforce to design and manufacture chip technology.

Part of a landmark education partnership that was in May 2023 at the G7 meeting in Japan, the effort brings together researchers and faculty from the U.S. and Japan to support the University Partnership for Workforce Advancement and Research & Development in Semiconductors (UPWARDS) for the Future project. Micron Technology and Tokyo Electron Limited, as founding industry partners, the National Science Foundation (NSF) and universities together are investing over $60 million for the five-year project. Many of the participants are attending kick-off activities at the UW this week.

“With our University’s proven track record of using public research investment to spur economic and technological growth, the UW is excited to be taking the lead in expanding our capacity to educate professionals and drive discovery in the critical field of semiconductors,” said UW President Ana Mari Cauce. “We’re grateful to Senator Cantwell for her leadership and for the collaboration of our partners.”

Modern technology — including household appliances, automobiles, computers and defense systems — relies on semiconductors. The semiconductor was invented in the U.S., yet today the U.S. produces about only 10% of the world’s supply. Recognizing the economic and national security risks this poses, U.S. policymakers passed the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors (CHIPS) & Science Act in 2022 to strengthen the U.S. semiconductor ecosystem.

“Our nation’s success in advanced technologies depends on having a skilled workforce. The ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” will help establish the Pacific Northwest as a leader by training the more than 90,000 students, faculty, and skilled professionals needed to build the most advanced chips right here in the United States,” said Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., who was instrumental in passing the landmark CHIPS & Science bill. “If we want to lead the world tomorrow, we must invest in worker training today.”

Boise, Ida.-based Micron and the partner universities will jointly recruit new faculty members, named as UPWARDS Professors, who will work on high-impact research projects with the industry partners. In addition to their research responsibilities, UPWARDS Professors will also contribute to curriculum development and other UPWARDS for the Future activities, including advising exchange students and graduate fellows. The first cohort of UPWARDS professors, all women, will also participate in industry-led mentoring programs to help gain valuable insights supporting in the advancement of their own careers. The grants will also support graduate fellowships and provide research experiences for undergraduate students.

Initiatives like UPWARDS for the Future prioritize expanding the STEM talent pipeline to reach groups that are underrepresented in the semiconductor industry today. This vision for UPWARDS for the Future aligns with UW efforts to close the STEM gender gap, establish pathways into higher education and facilitate new programs dedicated to attracting and retaining historically underrepresented groups. President Cauce and College of Engineering Dean Nancy Albritton are members of the national Education Group for Diversification and Growth in Engineering Consortium, or EDGE. And, last summer, the UW joined the Northwest University Semiconductor Network, led by Micron, to grow the next generation of semiconductor experts, by enhancing experiential learning opportunities in the semiconductor industry, and prioritizing access for underrepresented students, particularly in rural and tribal communities.

“We are proud to be part of this innovation partnership and to lead the NSF grant for UPWARDS. As Washington state’s leading educator of engineers and as a leader in chip engineering and workforce development for the global innovation economy, it is an honor to work collaboratively with academic and industry partners to drive advancements in this crucial scientific field,” Albritton said.

In addition to the UW, the UPWARDS for the Future partnership includes five U.S. institutions: Boise State, Purdue, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rochester Institute of Technology and Virginia Tech; and five Japanese universities: Hiroshima University, Kyushu University, Nagoya University, Tohoku University and Tokyo Institute of Technology. The UW will share the $10 million NSF grant with the five U.S. institutions, while Micron’s and Tokyo Electron’s $20 million gifts will be shared among the 11 U.S. and Japanese institutions.

“The UPWARDS for the Future program sets a prime model of government-industry-academia partnership, propelling the development of the U.S. semiconductor technology workforce. This initiative stands out with an emphasis on international collaboration, providing students with invaluable insights and experience into the industry’s international supply chain dynamics,” said , UW professor of both electrical and computer engineering and physics, as well as a faculty member of the UW Institute for Nano-Engineered Systems. Li will lead UW’s efforts supporting UPWARDS for the Future.

The UPWARDS program includes five pillar activities, including: Semiconductor Curriculum Design and Implementation; Expanding Women Workforces in Semiconductors; Experiential Learning; US-Japan International Student Faculty Exchange; and Memory-centric Research Projects. At this week’s workshop, the 11 institutions aim to establish across-the-board plans on student exchange, curriculum sharing and standardization, and research collaboration.

Semiconductor engineering is the second strategic university-corporate partnership initiative concluded between American and Japanese academic institutions and the corporate sector since May 2022, when President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Fumio Kishida made a commitment to advance U.S.-Japan science and technology cooperation. The UW also is the lead partner on the Cross Pacific AI Hub partnership announced on April 10, to lead innovation and technological breakthroughs in artificial intelligence. Both UPWARDS for the Future and the Cross Pacific AI Hub are cornerstones of the UW’s global impact, building lasting relationships with peer institutions and industry on both sides of the Pacific to support UW students, faculty and staff on work to address critical issues.

For more information, contact Li at upwards@uw.edu.

Here’s what other leaders said about UPWARDS for the Future:

“Economic security depends on the ‘3 M’s’: machines, minerals, and minds. The UPWARDS network is developing the workforce that we need to secure semiconductor supply chains and delivering on the promise made by President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Kishida to elevate U.S.-Japan cooperation in advanced science and technology. This innovative university-corporate partnership has become the model for long-term collaboration in transformative technologies.” — U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel

“This past year we have accelerated our collaboration with our ecosystem partners. Collaboration between the UPWARDS universities will cultivate the next generation of the high-tech workforce, ushering in an exciting new era of semiconductor research and manufacturing in the United States and Japan. Micron has made it a priority to increase opportunities for all students, making sure that women, students from underrepresented populations and those from rural or economically disadvantaged communities have equitable access to engineering and science degrees. The impacts of UPWARDS will be far-reaching as we work to meet the demand for semiconductor industry talent over the next two decades.” — April Arnzen, executive vice president and chief people officer, Micron Technology

“Tokyo Electron (TEL) is proud to participate in the U.S.-Japan University Partnership for Workforce Advancement and Research & Development in Semiconductors (UPWARDS) for the Future Program. The objectives of the program are in line with TEL’s vision to leverage our expertise as an industry-leading semiconductor equipment manufacturer and pursue technological innovation in semiconductors, thereby contributing to the development of a dream-inspiring society. Through participation in this program, we aim to help develop a diverse set of skilled individuals capable of leading future innovation in semiconductor technology. The UPWARDS Program is also part of our ongoing efforts in the US to collaborate with industry partners and help grow the talent pipeline for technicians, engineers, computer scientists, and other professionals who will be in high demand as the domestic semiconductor industry, its manufacturing base, and associated R&D activities grow.” — Alex Oscilowski, president, TEL Technology Center of America

For decades, scientists have been probing the potential of two-dimensional materials to transform our world. 2D materials are only a single layer of atoms thick. Within them, subatomic particles like electrons can only move in two dimensions. This simple restriction can trigger unusual electron behavior, imbuing the materials with “exotic” properties like bizarre forms of magnetism, superconductivity and other collective behaviors among electrons — all of which could be useful in computing, communication, energy and other fields.

But researchers have generally assumed that these exotic 2D properties exist only in single-layer sheets, or short stacks. The so-called “bulk” versions of these materials — with their more complex 3D atomic structures — should behave differently.

Or so they thought.

In a published July 19 in Nature, a team led by researchers at the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” reports that it is possible to imbue graphite — the bulk, 3D material found in No. 2 pencils — with physical properties similar to graphite’s 2D counterpart, graphene. Not only was this breakthrough unexpected, the team also believes its approach could be used to test whether similar types of bulk materials can also take on 2D-like properties. If so, 2D sheets won’t be the only source for scientists to fuel technological revolutions. Bulk, 3D materials could be just as useful.

“Stacking single layer on single layer — or two layers on two layers — has been the focus for unlocking new physics in 2D materials for several years now. In these experimental approaches, that’s where many interesting properties emerge,” said senior author , a UW assistant professor of physics and of materials science and engineering. “But what happens if you keep adding layers? Eventually it has to stop, right? That’s what intuition suggests. But in this case, intuition is wrong. It’s possible to mix 2D properties into 3D materials.”

The team, which also includes researchers at Osaka University and the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan, adapted an approach commonly used to probe and manipulate the properties of 2D materials: stacking 2D sheets together at a small twist angle. Yankowitz and his colleagues placed a single layer of graphene on top of a thin, bulk graphite crystal, and then introduced a twist angle of around 1 degree between graphite and graphene. They detected novel and unexpected electrical properties not just at the twisted interface, but deep in the bulk graphite as well.

The twist angle is critical to generating these properties, said Yankowitz, who is also a faculty member in the UW Clean Energy Institute and the UW Institute for Nano-Engineered Systems. A twist angle between 2D sheets, like two sheets of graphene, creates what’s called a moirĂ© pattern, which alters the flow of charged particles like electrons and induces exotic properties in the material.

In the UW-led experiments with graphite and graphene, the twist angle also induced a moiré pattern, with surprising results. Even though only a single sheet of graphene atop the bulk crystal was twisted, researchers found that the electrical properties of the whole material differed markedly from typical graphite. And when they turned on a magnetic field, electrons deep in the graphite crystal adopted unusual properties similar to those of electrons at the twisted interface. Essentially, the single twisted graphene-graphite interface became inextricably mixed with the rest of the bulk graphite.

“Though we were generating the moirĂ© pattern only at the surface of the graphite, the resulting properties were bleeding across the whole crystal,” said co-lead author , a UW postdoctoral researcher in physics.

For 2D sheets, moiré patterns generate properties that could be useful for quantum computing and other applications. Inducing similar phenomena in 3D materials unlocks new approaches for studying unusual and exotic states of matter and how to bring them out of the laboratory and into our everyday lives.

“The entire crystal takes on this 2D state,” said co-lead author Ellis Thompson, a UW doctoral student in physics. “This is a fundamentally new way to affect electron behavior in a bulk material.”

Yankowitz and his team believe their approach of generating a twist angle between graphene and a bulk graphite crystal could be used to create 2D-3D hybrids of its sister materials, including tungsten ditelluride and zirconium pentatelluride. This could unlock a new approach to re-engineering the properties of conventional bulk materials using a single 2D interface.

“This method could become a really rich playground for studying exciting new physical phenomena in materials with mixed 2D and 3D properties,” said Yankowitz.

Co-authors on paper are UW graduate student Esmeralda Arreguin-Martinez and UW postdoctoral researcher Yafei Ren, both in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering; , a UW assistant professor of materials science and engineering; , a UW professor of physics and chair of materials science and engineering; Manato Fujimoto of Osaka University; and Kenji Watanabe and Takashi Taniguchi of the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation; the U.S. Department of Energy; the UW Clean Energy Institute; the Office of the Director of National Intelligence; the Japan Science and Technology Agency; the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology; and the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust.

For more information, contact Yankowitz at myank@uw.edu.

Quantum computing could revolutionize our world. For specific and crucial tasks, it promises to be exponentially faster than the zero-or-one binary technology that underlies today’s machines, from supercomputers in laboratories to smartphones in our pockets. But developing quantum computers hinges on building a stable network of qubits — or quantum bits — to store information, access it and perform computations.

Yet the qubit platforms unveiled to date have a common problem: They tend to be delicate and vulnerable to outside disturbances. Even a stray photon can cause trouble. Developing fault-tolerant qubits — which would be immune to external perturbations — could be the ultimate solution to this challenge.

A team led by scientists and engineers at the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” has announced a significant advancement in this quest. In a pair of papers published and , they report that, in experiments with flakes of semiconductor materials — each only a single layer of atoms thick — they detected signatures of “fractional quantum anomalous Hall” (FQAH) states. The team’s discoveries mark a first and promising step in constructing a type of fault-tolerant qubit because FQAH states can host anyons — strange “quasiparticles” that have only a fraction of an electron’s charge. Some types of anyons can be used to make what are called “topologically protected” qubits, which are stable against any small, local disturbances.

“This really establishes a new paradigm for studying quantum physics with fractional excitations in the future,” said , the lead researcher behind these discoveries, who is also the Boeing Distinguished Professor of Physics and a professor of materials science and engineering at the UW.

FQAH states are related to the , an exotic phase of matter that exists in two-dimensional systems. In these states, electrical conductivity is constrained to precise fractions of a constant known as the conductance quantum. But fractional quantum Hall systems typically require massive magnetic fields to keep them stable, making them impractical for applications in quantum computing. The FQAH state has no such requirement — it is stable even “at zero magnetic field,” according to the team.

Hosting such an exotic phase of matter required the researchers to build an artificial lattice with exotic properties. They stacked two atomically thin flakes of the semiconductor material molybdenum ditelluride (MoTe₂) at small, mutual “twist” angles relative to one another. This configuration formed a synthetic “honeycomb lattice” for electrons. When researchers cooled the stacked slices to a few degrees above absolute zero, an intrinsic magnetism arose in the system. The intrinsic magnetism takes the place of the strong magnetic field typically required for the fractional quantum Hall state. Using lasers as probes, the researchers detected signatures of the FQAH effect, a major step forward in unlocking the power of anyons for quantum computing.

The team — which also includes scientists at the University of Hong Kong, the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan, Boston College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — envisions their system as a powerful platform to develop a deeper understanding of anyons, which have very different properties from everyday particles like electrons. Anyons are quasiparticles — or particle-like “excitations” — that can act as fractions of an electron. In future work with their experimental system, the researchers hope to discover an even more exotic version of this type of quasiparticle: “non-Abelian” anyons, which could be used as topological qubits. Wrapping — or “braiding” — the non-Abelian anyons around each other In this quantum state, information is essentially “spread out” over the entire system and resistant to local disturbances — forming the basis of topological qubits and a major advancement over the capabilities of current quantum computers.

“This type of topological qubit would be fundamentally different from those that can be created now,” said UW physics doctoral student Eric Anderson, who is lead author of the Science paper and co-lead author of the Nature paper. “The strange behavior of non-Abelian anyons would make them much more robust as a quantum computing platform.”

Three key properties, all of which existed simultaneously in the researchers’ experimental setup, allowed FQAH states to emerge:

• Magnetism: Though MoTe₂ is not a magnetic material, when they loaded the system with positive charges, a “spontaneous spin order” — a form of magnetism called ferromagnetism — emerged.
• Topology: Electrical charges within their system have “twisted bands,” similar to a Möbius strip, which helps make the system topological.
• Interactions: The charges within their experimental system interact strongly enough to stabilize the FQAH state.

The team hopes that, using their approach, non-Abelian anyons await for discovery.

“The observed signatures of the fractional quantum anomalous Hall effect are inspiring,” said UW physics doctoral student , co-lead author on the Nature paper and co-author of the Science paper. “The fruitful quantum states in the system can be a laboratory-on-a-chip for discovering new physics in two dimensions, and also new devices for quantum applications.”

“Our work provides clear evidence of the long-sought FQAH states,” said Xu, who is also a member of the Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute, the Institute for Nano-Engineered Systems and the Clean Energy Institute, all at UW. “We are currently working on electrical transport measurements, which could provide direct and unambiguous evidence of fractional excitations at zero magnetic field.”

The team believes that, with their approach, investigating and manipulating these unusual FQAH states can become commonplace — accelerating the quantum computing journey.

Additional co-authors on the papers are William Holtzmann and Yinong Zhang in the UW Department of Physics; Di Xiao, Chong Wang, Xiaowei Zhang, Xiaoyu Liu and Ting Cao in the UW Department of Materials Science & Engineering; Feng-Ren Fan and Wang Yao at the University of Hong Kong and the Joint Institute of Theoretical and Computational Physics at Hong Kong; Takashi Taniguchi and Kenji Watanabe from the National Institute of Materials Science in Japan; Ying Ran of Boston College; and Liang Fu at MIT. The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the National Science Foundation, the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, the Croucher Foundation, the Tencent Foundation, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ”.

For more information, contact Xu at xuxd@uw.edu, Anderson at eca55@uw.edu and Cai at caidish@uw.edu.

In a world abuzz with smartphones, tablets, 5G and Siri, there are whispers of something new over the horizon — and it isn’t artificial intelligence!

A growing field of research seeks to develop technologies built directly on the seemingly strange and contradictory rules of quantum mechanics. These principles underlie the behavior of atoms and everything comprised of atoms, including people. But these rules are only apparent at very small scales. Researchers across the globe are constructing rudimentary quantum computers, which could perform computational tasks that the “classical” computers in our pockets and on our desks simply could not.

To help transform these quantum whispers into a chorus, scientists at the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” are pursuing multiple quantum research projects spanning from creating materials with never-before-seen physical properties to studying the “quantum bits” — or qubits (pronounced “kyu-bits”) — that make quantum computing possible.

With their in the Department of Physics and the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, UW Professor studies the quantum-level properties of crystalline materials for potential applications in electrical and optical quantum technologies. In addition, Fu, who is also a faculty member in the Molecular & Engineering Sciences Institute and the Institute for Nano-engineered Systems, has led efforts to develop a comprehensive graduate curriculum and provide internship opportunities in quantum sciences for students in fields ranging from computer science to chemistry — all toward the goal of forging a quantum-competent workforce.

UW News sat down with Fu to talk about the potential of quantum research, and why it’s so important.

Let’s start with the obvious. What is “quantum?”

Kai-Mei Fu: Originally, “quantum” just meant “discrete.” It referred to the observation that, at really small scales, something can exist only in discrete states. This is different from our everyday experiences. For example, if you start a car and then accelerate, the car “accesses” every speed. It can occupy any position. But when you get down to these really small systems — unusually small — you start to see that every “position” may not be accessible. And similarly, every speed or energy state may not be accessible. Things are “quantized” at this level.

And that’s not the only weird thing that’s going on: At this small scale, not only do things exist in discrete states, but it is possible for things to exist in a combination of two or more different states at once. This is called “superposition,” and that is when the interesting physical phenomena occur.

How is superposition useful in developing quantum technology?

KMF: Well, let’s take quantum computing for example. In the information age of today, a computational “bit” can only exist in one of two possible states: 0 and 1. But with superposition, you could have a qubit that can exist in two different states at the same time. It’s not just that you don’t know which state it’s in. It really is coexisting in two different states. Thus it is possible to compute with many states, in fact exponentially many states, at the same time. With quantum computing and quantum information, the power is in being able to control that superposition.

What are some exciting advancements or applications that could stem from controlling superposition?

KMF: There are four main areas of excitement. My favorite is probably quantum computation. It’s the one that’s furthest out technologically — right now, computation involving just a handful of qubits has been realized — but it’s kind of the big one.

We know that the power of quantum computation will be immense because  superposition is scalable. This means that you would have so much more computational space to utilize, and you could perform computations that our classical computers would need the age of the universe to perform. So, we know that there’s a lot of power in quantum computing. But there’s also a lot of speculation in this field, and questions about how you can harness that power.

Does the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” have a quantum computer?

KMF: It currently does not. We are gathering materials now to construct a quantum processor — the basis of a quantum computer — as part of our educational curriculum in this field.

Besides quantum computing, what other applications are there?

KMF: Another area is sensing for more precise measurements. One example: single-atom crystals that can act as sensors. For my research, I work with atoms arranged into a perfect crystal and then I create “defects” by adding in different types of atoms or taking out one atom in the lattice. The defect acts like an artificial atom and it will react to tiny changes nearby, such as a change in a magnetic field. These changes are normally so small that they would be hard to measure at room temperature, but the artificial atom amplifies the changes into something I can see — sometimes even by eye. For example, some crystals will radiate light when I shine a laser on them. By measuring the light they emit, I can detect a change.

This is so special. I get super excited because we know that all these things are possible in theory, but we’ve just hit the timescale where we’re starting to see real technological applications right now.

That sounds really exciting!

KMF: Another area I’ll mention is quantum simulation. There are a lot of potential applications in this field, such as studying new energy storage systems or figuring out how to make an enzyme better at nitrogen fixation. Essentially these problems require making new materials, but these are complex quantum systems that are hard for classical computers to simulate or predict. But quantum simulation could, and this could be done using a type of quantum computer. The field is expecting a lot of advancement in materials and other areas from quantum simulation.

The final area is quantum communication. When you’re transmitting sensitive information, you can create a key to encrypt it. With quantum encryption you can distribute a key that’s so fundamentally secure that if you have an eavesdropper, they leave a “mark” behind that you can detect.

How big is the field of quantum communication? Is it happening now?

KMF: Well, in the past few years, quantum communication became a prominent topic in government when China .

Let’s shift gears a little to talk about quantum in terms of workforce development. You have companies, national labs and universities all pursuing quantum research. Are there any specific challenges for quantum education?

KMF: What we are doing is crafting a common framework — a common language — for education in quantum. Quantum involves many fields, including chemistry, computer science, material science, chemical engineering and theoretical physics. Historically these fields have all had their own approach, their own vocabulary, their own history. At the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ”, we’ve launched a core curriculum in quantum for graduate students who want to pursue careers in this field. Through the , we also have partners for internships.

We need more scientists in quantum because this is an exciting time. A lot is changing. There are many questions to answer, too many. Every field in quantum is growing in its own way. In the coming years, this is going to change a lot about how we approach problems — in communication, in software, in medicine and in materials. It will be beyond what we can think about even today.

For more information, contact Fu at kaimeifu@uw.edu.

Researchers have discovered that light — in the form of a laser — can trigger a form of magnetism in a normally nonmagnetic material. This magnetism centers on the behavior of electrons. These subatomic particles have an electronic property called “spin,” which has a potential application in quantum computing. The researchers found that electrons within the material became oriented in the same direction when illuminated by photons from a laser.

The experiment, led by scientists at the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ”, the University of Hong Kong and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, was April 20 in Nature.

By controlling and aligning electron spins at this level of detail and accuracy, this platform could have applications in the field of quantum simulation, according to co-senior author , a Boeing Distinguished Professor at the UW in the Department of Physics and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

“In this system, we can use photons essentially to control the ‘ground state’ properties — such as magnetism — of charges trapped within the semiconductor material,” said Xu, who is also a faculty researcher with the UW’s , the , and the . “This is a necessary level of control for developing certain types of — or ‘quantum bits’ — for and other applications.”

Xu, whose research team spearheaded the experiments, led the study with co-senior author Wang Yao, professor of physics at the University of Hong Kong, whose team worked on the theory underpinning the results. Other UW faculty members involved in this study are co-authors , a UW professor of physics and of materials science and engineering who also holds a joint appointment at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and , a UW professor of chemistry, director of the , and faculty member in the Clean Energy Institute and the Molecular Engineering & Sciences Institute.

The team worked with ultrathin sheets — each just three layers of atoms thick — of tungsten diselenide and tungsten disulfide. Both are semiconductor materials, so named because electrons move through them at a rate between that of a fully conducting metal and an insulator, with potential uses in photonics and solar cells. Researchers stacked the two sheets to form a “moirĂ© superlattice,” a stacked structure made up of repeating units.

Stacked sheets like these are powerful platforms for quantum physics and materials research because the superlattice structure can hold excitons in place. Excitons are bound pairs of “excited” electrons and their associated positive charges, and scientists can measure how their properties and behavior change in different superlattice configurations.

The researchers were studying the exciton properties within the material when they made the surprising discovery that light triggers a key magnetic property within the normally nonmagnetic material. Photons provided by the laser “excited” excitons within the laser beam’s path, and these excitons induced a type of long-range correlation among other electrons, with their spins all orienting in the same direction.

“It’s as if the excitons within the superlattice had started to ‘talk’ to spatially separated electrons,” said Xu. “Then, via excitons, the electrons established exchange interactions, forming what’s known as an ‘ordered state’ with aligned spins.”

The spin alignment that the researchers witnessed within the superlattice is a characteristic of ferromagnetism, the form of magnetism intrinsic to materials like iron. It is normally absent from tungsten diselenide and tungsten disulfide. Each repeating unit within the moirĂ© superlattice is essentially acting like a to “trap” an electron spin, said Xu. Trapped electron spins that can “talk” to each other, as these can, have been suggested as the basis for a type of qubit, the basic unit for quantum computers that could harness the unique properties of quantum mechanics for computation.

In a separate published Nov. 25 in Science, Xu and his collaborators found new magnetic properties in moirĂ© superlattices formed by ultrathin sheets of chromium triiodide. Unlike the tungsten diselenide and tungsten disulfide, chromium triiodide harbors intrinsic magnetic properties, even as a single atomic sheet. Stacked chromium triiodide layers formed alternating magnetic domains: one that is ferromagnetic — with spins all aligned in the same direction — and another that is “antiferromagnetic,” where spins point in opposite directions between adjacent layers of the superlattice and essentially “cancel each other out,” according to Xu. That discovery also illuminates relationships between a material’s structure and its magnetism that could propel future advances in computing, data storage and other fields.

“It shows you the magnetic ‘surprises’ that can be hiding within moirĂ© superlattices formed by 2D quantum materials,” said Xu. “You can never be sure what you’ll find unless you look.”

First author of the Nature paper is Xi Wang, a UW postdoctoral researcher in physics and chemistry. Other co-authors are Chengxin Xiao at the University of Hong Kong; UW physics doctoral students Heonjoon Park and Jiayi Zhu; Chong Wang, a UW researcher in materials science and engineering; Takashi Taniguchi and Kenji Watanabe at the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan; and Jiaqiang Yan at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The research was funded by the U.S. Department of Energy; the U.S. Army Research Office; the U.S. National Science Foundation; the Croucher Foundation; the University Grant Committee/Research Grants Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region; the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology; the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; the Japan Science and Technology Agency; the state of Washington; and the UW.

For more information, contact Xu at xuxd@uw.edu.

The National Science Foundation on Sept. 9 it will fund a new endeavor to bring atomic-level precision to the devices and technologies that underpin much of modern life, and will transform fields like information technology in the decades to come. The five-year, $25 million Science and Technology Center grant will found the — or IMOD — a collaboration of scientists and engineers at 11 universities led by the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ”.

IMOD research will center on new semiconductor materials and scalable manufacturing processes for new optoelectronic devices for applications ranging from displays and sensors to a technological revolution, under development today, that’s based on harnessing the principles of quantum mechanics.

“In the early days of electronics, a computer would fill an entire room. Now we all carry around smartphones that are millions of times more powerful in our pockets,” said IMOD director , the Alvin L. and Verla R. Kwiram Endowed Professor of Chemistry at the UW, chief scientist at the UW and co-director of .  “Today, we see an opportunity for advances in materials and scalable manufacturing to do the same thing for optoelectronics: Can we take a quantum optics experiment that fills an entire room, and fit thousands — or even millions  — of them on a chip, enabling a new revolution? Along the way we anticipate IMOD’s science will help with a few more familiar challenges, like improving the display of the cell phone you already have in your pocket so the battery lasts longer.”

Optoelectronics is a field that enables much of modern information technology, clean energy, sensing and security. Optoelectronic devices are driven by the interaction of light with electronic materials, typically semiconductors. Devices based on optoelectronics include light-emitting diodes, semiconductor lasers, image sensors and the building blocks of quantum communication and computing technologies such as single-photon sources. Their applications today include sensors, displays and data transmission, and optoelectronics is poised to play a critical role in the development of quantum information systems.

But to realize this quantum future, present-day research must develop new materials and new strategies to manufacture them. That’s where IMOD comes in, Ginger said. Building on advances in the synthesis of semiconductor and , the center will integrate the work of scientists and engineers from diverse backgrounds, including:

• Chemists with expertise in atomically precise colloidal synthesis, characterization and theory, which consist of engineered systems of nanoparticles suspended in a medium
• Materials scientists and mechanical engineers developing methods for the integration, processing and additive manufacturing of semiconductor devices
• Electrical engineers and physicists who are developing new nanoscale photonic structures and investigating the performance limits of these materials for optical quantum communication and computing

“NSF Science and Technology Centers are integrative not only in the sense that they span traditional academic disciplines, but also in the sense that they seek to benefit society by connecting academic research with industrial and governmental needs, while also educating a diverse STEM workforce,” said Ginger. “To this end, we’re extremely lucky to have had the support of an amazing list of external partners across the fields of industry, government and education.”

A partial list of IMOD’s external partners includes companies such as Amazon, Applied Materials, Corning Incorporated, Microsoft, Nanosys and FOM Technologies, Inc.; government organizations like the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Washington State Department of Commerce; and educational partners including at UW, and the at Georgia Tech.

The center will launch a series of mentorship, team science training and internship programs for participants, including students from underrepresented groups in STEM and first-generation students. Center scientists will also work with high school teachers on curriculum development programs aligned with the and act as “ambassadors” to K-12 students, introducing them to STEM careers.

“In partnership with and the , IMOD is launching a Quantum Training Testbed facility to provide cutting edge training and workforce development opportunities for students from across IMOD’s participating sites and partners,” said , associate professor of physics and of electrical and computer engineering at the UW, who is IMOD’s associate director of quantum workforce development. “We’re excited to have such strong support from our partners in the region, allowing us to build on the investments that Washington state has already made in the to support workforce training and economic development. For example, Microsoft plans to donate a cryostat that will allow our students to cool samples down to within a few degrees of absolute zero to study phenomena such as quantum spin physics and decoherence, and we have plans to do so much more for our trainees. Right now, we’re asking the question: ‘What is the equipment we wish we had been able to experiment with as students?’”

The 11 academic institutions that make up IMOD are the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ”; the University of Maryland, College Park; the University of Pennsylvania; Lehigh University; Columbia University; Georgia Institute of Technology; Northwestern University; the City College of New York; the University of Chicago; University of Colorado at Boulder; and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

In addition to Ginger and Fu, other UW faculty involved with IMOD include , a UW professor of chemistry; , associate professor of mechanical engineering and of materials science and engineering, and technical director of the Washington Clean Energy Testbeds; , associate professor of physics and of electrical and computer engineering; and , professor of chemistry and director of the Molecular Engineering Materials Center. Fu and Majumdar co-chair and are also faculty members with the UW . Ginger, Cossairt, Fu, MacKenzie and Gamelin are member faculty at the Clean Energy Institute. Ginger, Fu, Majumdar and Gamelin are faculty researchers with the UW .

For more information, contact Ginger at dginger@uw.edu.

Nanoparticles are a promising type of drug delivery system. Also known as nanocarriers, these tiny particles can bind to drugs and protect them from degradation until they enter tumor cells. But their effectiveness as drug carriers and drug protectors, as well as potential toxicity in patients, depends significantly on their size, composition and chemical properties. Balancing these competing factors is a delicate process. Although researchers have made significant advances in nanomedicine in the last decade, it remained a formidable challenge to design and synthesize small, stable nanoparticles that could deliver sufficient drugs to treat solid tumors.

Earlier this year scientists at the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” announced that they have achieved such a balancing act with a nanoparticle-based drug delivery system that can ferry a potent anti-cancer drug through the bloodstream safely. As they report in a published in May in Materials Today, their nanoparticle is derived from , a natural and organic polymer that, among other things, makes up the outer shells of shrimp.

The team, led by , a UW professor of materials science and engineering and of neurological surgery, demonstrated that their chitin-derived system can successfully ferry , a potent anti-cancer drug that is also known as paclitaxel, through the bloodstream and inhibit tumor growth and spread, also known as metastasis, in mice. The nanoparticles showed no adverse side effects, likely since they are derived in part from naturally occurring polymer.

“This could form the basis of a new class of nanoparticle delivery systems that can transport anti-cancer therapeutics through the body safely, with no toxic side effects from the nanoparticle material,” said Zhang, who is also a faculty researcher with the UW and the .

The nanoparticles, once loaded with Taxol, are about 20.6 nanometers in diameter. That’s about 1/4000th the width of a human hair, the U.S. National Nanotechnology Initiative. The particles are small enough to travel through blood vessels and get to potentially compact tumor sites.

Zhang’s team started by loading Taxol particles onto much longer strands of , a material derived from chitin. The nanofibers break down to form nanoparticles when exposed to serum, a blood protein, either in the lab or in the body. Researchers showed that drug-loaded nanofibers, when injected into mice, broke down rapidly into the tiny nanoparticles — thanks to serum proteins in the blood — and could circulate freely in the bloodstream, enter organs and reach tumor sites.

The team subjected Taxol-loaded nanoparticles to a barrage of experiments to see what they could do to tumors. In cell cultures of mouse mammary cancer cells, a majority of cancer cells showed signs of cell death 48 hours after treatment, indicating that nanoparticle-associated Taxol could enter cancer cells and impair cell growth at least as well as free-floating Taxol. In mice, Taxol-loaded nanofibers, which broke down into nanoparticles, showed 90% inhibition of mammary tumor growth compared to about 66% inhibition for Taxol injected in the clinical solution used widely today. The nanoparticles also inhibited melanoma tumor growth in mice by up to 75%. In separate experiments in mice, Taxol-loaded nanoparticles also prevented spread of mammary cancer to other parts of the body, unlike Taxol in a clinical solution.

In addition to these promising findings with tumors, the team found that the nanoparticles kept Taxol circulating in the bloodstream longer, giving the drug more time to reach the tumor site. In the bloodstream of mice, the half-life of Taxol-associated nanoparticles was nearly 25 hours, compared to less than 2 hours for Taxol injected in the clinical solution. Mice injected with the nanofibers showed no signs of toxic side effects, indicating that the nanoparticles themselves weren’t causing harm to tissues. In contrast, the clinical solution used widely today for Taxol can cause liver toxicity in mice, among other side effects.

Zhang believes that the chitosan-derived nanoparticles could form the basis of a non-toxic drug delivery system for cancer that keeps therapeutics in the body longer to inhibit tumor growth and metastasis.

“This is a very promising finding. Many drug delivery systems used today for anti-cancer drugs come with toxic side effects, and don’t protect the drug for very long in the patient’s body,” said Zhang. “The nanoparticles have all the characteristics you could hope for in getting the drug to into tumor cells. The small chitosan-based nanocarrier, made in situ, with unique biocompatibility and biodegradability, offers a new strategy for anti-cancer drug delivery and has great potential for rapid translation to the clinic.”

Co-authors on the paper are Qingxin Mu, Guanyou Lin, Zachary Stephen, Seokhwan Chung and Hui Wang in the UW Department of Materials Science & Engineering; Victoria Patton in the UW Department of Chemical Engineering; and Rachel Gebhart in the UW Department of Chemistry. The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

For more information, contact Zhang at mzhang@uw.edu.

Scientists can have ambitious goals: curing disease, exploring distant worlds, clean-energy revolutions. In physics and materials research, some of these ambitious goals are to make ordinary-sounding objects with extraordinary properties: wires that can transport power without any energy loss, or quantum computers that can perform complex calculations that today’s computers cannot achieve. And the emerging workbenches for the experiments that gradually move us toward these goals are 2D materials — sheets of material that are a single layer of atoms thick.

In a published Sept. 14 in the journal Nature Physics, a team led by the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” reports that carefully constructed stacks of graphene — a 2D form of carbon — can exhibit highly correlated electron properties. The team also found evidence that this type of collective behavior likely relates to the emergence of exotic magnetic states.

“We’ve created an experimental setup that allows us to manipulate electrons in the graphene layers in a number of exciting new ways,” said co-senior author , a UW assistant professor of physics and of materials science and engineering, as well as a faculty researcher at the UW .

Yankowitz led the team with co-senior author , a UW professor of physics and of materials science and engineering. Xu is also a faculty researcher with the UW , the UW and the Clean Energy Institute.

Since 2D materials are one layer of atoms thick, bonds between atoms only form in two dimensions and particles like electrons can only move like pieces on a board game: side-to-side, front-to-back or diagonally, but not up or down. These restrictions can imbue 2D materials with properties that their 3D counterparts lack, and scientists have been probing 2D sheets of different materials to characterize and understand these potentially useful qualities.

But over the past decade, scientists like Yankowitz have also started layering 2D materials — like a stack of pancakes — and have discovered that, if stacked and rotated in a particular configuration and exposed to extremely low temperatures, these layers can exhibit exotic and unexpected properties.

The UW team worked with building blocks of bilayer graphene: two sheets of graphene naturally layered together. They stacked one bilayer on top of another — for a total of four graphene layers — and twisted them so that the layout of carbon atoms between the two bilayers were slightly out of alignment. Past research has shown that introducing these small twist angles between single layers or bilayers of graphene can have big consequences for the behavior of their electrons. With specific configurations of the electric field and charge distribution across the stacked bilayers, electrons display highly correlated behaviors. In other words, they all start doing the same thing — or displaying the same properties — at the same time.

“In these instances, it no longer makes sense to describe what an individual electron is doing, but what all electrons are doing at once,” said Yankowitz.

“It’s like having a room full of people in which a change in any one person’s behavior will cause everyone else to react similarly,” said lead author , a UW doctoral student in physics and a former Clean Energy Institute fellow.

Quantum mechanics underlies these correlated properties, and since the stacked graphene bilayers have a density of more than 10¹², or one trillion, electrons per square centimeter, a lot of electrons are behaving collectively.

The team sought to unravel some of the mysteries of the correlated states in their experimental setup. At temperatures of just a few degrees above absolute zero, the team discovered that they could “tune” the system into a type of correlated insulating state — where it would conduct no electrical charge. Near these insulating states, the team found pockets of highly conducting states with features resembling superconductivity.

Though other teams have recently reported these states, the origins of these features remained a mystery. But the UW team’s work has found evidence for a possible explanation. They found that these states appeared to be driven by a quantum mechanical property of electrons called “spin” — a type of angular momentum. In regions near the correlated insulating states, they found evidence that all the electron spins spontaneously align. This may indicate that, near the regions showing correlated insulating states, a form of is emerging — not superconductivity. But additional experiments would need to verify this.

These discoveries are the latest example of the many surprises that are in store when conducting experiments with 2D materials.

“Much of what we’re doing in this line of research is to try to create, understand and control emerging electronic states, which can be either correlated or topological, or possess both properties,” said Xu. “There could be a lot we can do with these states down the road — a form of quantum computing, a new energy-harvesting device, or some new types of sensors, for example — and frankly we won’t know until we try.”

In the meantime, expect stacks, bilayers and twist angles to keep making waves.

Co-authors are UW researchers Yuhao Li and Yang Liu; UW physics doctoral student and Clean Energy Institute fellow Jiaqi Cai; and K. Watanabe and T. Taniguchi with the National Institute for Materials Science in Japan. The research was funded by the UW Molecular Engineering Materials Center, a National Science Foundation Materials Research Science and Engineering Center; the China Scholarship Council; the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan; and the Japan Science and Technology Agency.

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For more information, contact Xu at xuxd@uw.edu and Yankowitz at myank@uw.edu.

The National Science Foundation has awarded $3 million to establish a NSF Research Traineeship at the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” for graduate students in quantum information science and technology, or QIST. Research in QIST includes the development of quantum computers, which hold the promise of performing computations far faster than today’s computers, as well as of fundamentally secure communication systems and simulations of new materials with novel and potentially revolutionary properties.

All QIST pursuits exploit the complex, probability-based principles of quantum mechanics, which underlie the behavior and properties of matter. QIST ventures bring together scientists with diverse areas of expertise — including physics, chemistry, computer science, electrical engineering and materials science. And while diversity is a strength of this dynamic field, it is also a reason to develop a formal training program for budding QIST researchers.

“Some fields, like physics, have been dealing with quantum mechanics for a long time; for others, it’s a relatively new concept to bring into lecture halls and research laboratories,” said , the principal investigator and director of the new traineeship, a UW associate professor of physics and of electrical and computer engineering, and a researcher with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. “We are creating this core educational and training framework so graduate students in these diverse fields can gain the knowledge and skills they need for futures in QIST, while also remaining grounded in their respective fields.”

The new traineeship — known as Accelerating Quantum-Enabled Technologies, or AQET — will make the UW one of just “a handful” of universities with a formal, interdisciplinary QIST curriculum, added Fu, who also co-chairs the steering committee for QIST research on campus and is a faculty member with the UW , the and the .

Initial NSF funds will support the traineeship through one year of development and student recruitment, as well as its first four years of operation. Main features of the AQET traineeship will be:

• Student cohorts recruited each year among doctoral programs in the Department of Chemistry, the Department of Physics, the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the Department of Materials Science and Engineering, and the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering
• Fellowships for some AQET trainees from the NSF or other sources during the program’s approximately 18-month duration
• Developing and launching a set of foundational QIST courses for AQET students, which will also be open to other UW graduate and undergraduate students
• A six- to nine-month capstone project
• Outreach efforts to recruit female students

The core courses include several already taught at the UW, such as in physics, as well as new ones to introduce additional QIST topics to students from diverse disciplines.

“QIST involves many different contributions from science and engineering departments on university campuses, and we’ve all come together speaking different ‘languages’ from our home disciplines,” said Fu. “So we want this foundational coursework to ground students in a common framework for approaching and talking about QIST concepts and principles.”

One course, for example, is a project-based introduction to quantum computing. Using IBM and Microsoft cloud quantum computing platforms, students will explore what is currently possible in information storage and retrieval in quantum computing and apply that knowledge to their own background in science and engineering.

“Someone with a computer science background can see and understand the current limitations in nascent quantum computing, while a student in materials science can see and understand how important material properties are to the performance of these devices,” said Fu.

The AQET capstone project will allow students to pursue their own research interests in QIST after the foundational coursework. It can be conducted at the UW or at a collaborating research institution, university or company. Some potential collaborators already partner with the UW in QIST endeavors, such as the founded by the UW, Microsoft and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

“We are open to lots of options for these partnerships, because ultimately our goal is to be flexible in response to student interests,” said Fu. “The AQET traineeship will complement the students’ education and research in their respective doctoral programs, and ultimately prepare them for jobs in industries that increasingly demand QIST knowledge and experience.”

Co-principal investigators on AQET are , UW associate professor of chemistry; , UW professor of computer science and engineering; , UW assistant professor of physics and of electrical and computer engineering; and , a researcher at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and a UW affiliate assistant professor of physics. Cossairt and Majumdar are also faculty researchers with the Clean Energy Institute, and Majumdar is a faculty researcher with the Molecular Engineering and Sciences Institute and the Institute for Nano-engineered Systems.

For more information, contact Fu at kaimeifu@uw.edu.

Seven scientists and engineers at the ÁńÁ«ÊÓÆ” have been elected to the Washington State Academy of Sciences, according to an July 15 by the academy. One-third of the 21 new members for 2020 hail from the UW.

The new members are lauded for “their outstanding record of scientific and technical achievement and their willingness to work on behalf of the academy to bring the best available science to bear on issues within the state of Washington.” The academy’s current membership selected 17 of the new members, and four were chosen by virtue of their election to one of the .

New UW members who were elected by academy members are:

• , the Frank & Julie Jungers Dean of the College of Engineering and professor of bioengineering, “for outstanding contributions to the design and application of microtechnologies to biomedical research, leadership in interdisciplinary research and education, and entrepreneurial excellence.”
• , professor of chemistry and of materials science and engineering, “for the development of controlled polymerization reactions for conjugated polymers, especially alkyl-thiophenes, for organic electronics applications.” Luscombe is also a faculty member with the , the and the .
• , professor of Earth and space sciences, “for fundamental contributions to geomorphology, for the elucidation of soils, rivers, and landscapes as underpinnings of ecological systems and human societies, and for reaching broad audiences through trade books on agriculture, microbes, creationism, and fisheries.”
• Sue Moore, research scientist at the in the Department of Biology, “for contributions to the understanding of Arctic marine ecosystems and pioneering the integration of Conventional Science and Indigenous Knowledge to yield better policy decisions.”
• , professor of pharmacology, “for exceptional contributions to the understanding of the molecular mechanisms by which ubiquitin ligases, as a new class of enzymes, control protein ubiquitination in human physiology and diseases, as well as plant growth and development.”

UW members who were chosen by virtue of their election to one of the National Academies are:

• , professor of biostatistics and of epidemiology at the UW and a faculty member at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, “for pioneering work in the field of designing and analyzing vaccine studies, including studies of HIV vaccines and innovative use of mathematical and statistical methods to study infectious disease.” Halloran was elected to the National Academy of Medicine in 2019.
• , professor emeritus of civil and environmental engineering, “for contributions to geotechnical earthquake engineering, including liquefaction, seismic stability and seismic site response.” Kramer was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2020.

New members are to be inducted at the annual members meeting, which is currently scheduled for September.