Epitaxial Materials and Devices for Superconducting Qubits
August 21 (Thursday), 2025
11:30 am to 12:30 pm (EST)
Virtual via Zoom
Abstract: To increase the number of entangled superconducting qubits for practical quantum computing, it is necessary to identify decoherence sources and control materials and interfaces accurately. A team that Dr. Jena leads is trying to achieve this using entirely epitaxial materials. Growing fully epitaxial sapphire thin films on as-obtained sapphire wafers reduces surface contamination, enabling resonator and Josephson junction growth without air exposure. He will present new findings on nitride superconductors’ phases and critical thicknesses on sapphire, their impact on resonator quality factors, and unique crystal orientations for Josephson junctions.
Biography: Debdeep Jena is the David E. Burr Professor of Engineering at Cornell University, with appointments in multiple departments. After obtaining his Ph.D. from UC Santa Barbara in 2003, he joined the faculty at Notre Dame, moving to Cornell in 2015. His research is focused on electronic and photonic devices (with applications in energy-efficient electronics, LEDs and in quantum technologies). His research utilizes quantized semiconductor structures and their heterostructures with superconductors, ferroelectrics and magnets, with results published in over 300 articles in leading journals, and gathering several patents. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society, has received several other awards, the most recent one being the Intel Outstanding Research award in 2020.