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Two IOP Achievements Selected As Highlights of Scientific and Technological Innovation of Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2019

Date:15-01-2020 Print

On January 10, 2020, the Chinese Academy of Sciences officially released the list of "highlights of scientific and technological innovation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 2019", which included 12 achievements. Two achievements made by Institute of Physics (IOP) were selected, including the cooperative achievement "accomplishing the experiment of the quantum walk of strongly correlated tangled hierarchy for the first time" by Researcher Fan Heng of IOP and his partners like University of Science and Technology of China, and the achievement "atomically precise and custom-design origami graphene nanostructures" by Academician Gao Hongjun and his group of IOP.

Researcher Fan Heng cooperated with his partners like University of Science and Technology of China to realize the simulation of the quantum walk of strongly correlated tangled hierarchy with a device having 12 superconducting qubits forming a one-dimensional chain structure. Quantum walk is the quantum correspondence of classical random walk, and it is also an alternative to realize universal quantum calculation. The experiment respectively realizes the quantum walk with single-particle excitation and two-particle excitation. Under the single-particle excitation, the evolution behavior of polarizability and entropy is displayed, especially the generation, oscillation and transfer of quantum entanglement. It is found that the transfer speed of quantum entanglement between qubits of this device is limited by the Lieb-Robinson limit, which is 118.4 lattice points per microsecond. Under the two-particle excitation, by analyzing the second order correlation, the rebound effect can be realized, that is, two neighboring excitations transfer to different directions, which is fermionization.

Academician Gao Hongjun and his group of IOP have realized custom-design origami graphene nanostructures controlled with atomic-scale precision for the first time in the world. It is the smallest graphene origami in the world. This technic can be applied to 1) constructing the folded nanostructures and its heterojunction quantum devices of other novel two-dimensional atomic crystal materials; 2) constructing complicated folded structures of various two-dimensional atomic crystal materials and its heterojunction quantum devices; 3) researching the physical properties of the folded structures clearly in situ, such as, superconductivity, topology and magnetism of two-dimensional atomic crystals, and the transport property of heterojunction and its application. This research is of great scientific significance for the construction of new quantum materials, quantum devices (machines) and their applications.

Further reading:
http://www.iop.cas.cn/xwzx/kydt/201904/t20190430_5286917.html
http://www.iop.cas.cn/xwzx/kydt/201909/t20190906_5377489.html