NWO Veni Grant for Filip Malinowski at QuTech: Bringing New Tools for Topological Quantum Computing

(QuTech.nl) The Dutch Research Council (NWO) has awarded an NWO Veni Grant to Filip Malinowski at QuTech. The grant (250 thousand euros for a three-year program) will allow him to use a new kind of sensor to further uncover the properties of so-called topological materials, which are promising materials for developing robust quantum devices.

NOTE:  QuTech was co-producer of the recent IQT Europe.

Quantum information is very fragile and easily lost, which is one of the main problems for performing large quantum computations. A certain type of material, called topological materials, could offer a solution: these materials are a promising platform for constructing extremely robust quantum bits, the building blocks of quantum devices. However, studying the properties of these topological materials is notoriously hard.
Filip Malinowski, a postdoctoral researcher at the Kouwenhoven lab, applied for the NWO Veni Grant to take on the challenge of further uncovering the properties of topological materials. He aims to do this by using a new kind of sensor. Malinowski: “I hope to combine the ideas of two research fields that are followed in QuTech: to manipulate electrons as is done in our spin qubit research, but instead use them as a new kind of sensor to learn about properties of topological materials. In this way, I aim to bring new tools that are essential for topological quantum computing.”