Author: Nassim Chikhi

Loughborough University

Loughborough University is one of the top research-led public universities in the United Kingdom, ranked in the top 10 in each of the most recent national league tables. It is renowned for the excellence and relevance of the research in various areas of natural sciences, mathematics, engineering, sport and health sciences. The website of the Loughborough University is https://www.lboro.ac.uk/

Loughborough’s Department of Physics is proud of its tradition of leading research in condensed matter physics and quantum engineering. The recent core research themes include, but not limited by

• Quantum and nano-engineering,
• Superconducting and semiconducting devices
• Novel functional materials,
• Physics of complex systems,
• High-frequency solid state physics.

More information about the department could be found at https://www.lboro.ac.uk/departments/physics/

DrAlexandreZagoskin(AZ) (Gender male) is a Reader in Quantum. He graduated magna cum laude from Kharkov State University (USSR) in 1980 and obtained his PhD in physics from the Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Engineering (Kharkov) in 1991. His experience includes work both in academia (Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) (Japan), University of British Columbia and University of Sherbrooke (Canada), Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden), Institute for Low Temperature Physics and Technology (USSR)) and industry (DWave Systems Inc., which AZ co-founded in 1999). In 2018 AZ was a Resident Fellow at Notre Dame Institute for Advanced Study (USA). AZ has authored over 100 research papers, mainly in high-impact journals, more than 20 US and EU patents and four books and book chapters, including the first monograph on quantum engineering (Cambridge University Press, 2011), and a textbook on quantum many-body theory (Springer, 1998; 2nd expanded edition, 2014), which was translated to Japanese (in 1999 and 2012) and reprinted in China (2008), and a popular science book “Quantum mechanics: A complete introduction (Hodder, 2015). AZ has experience supervising PhD students and PhD scientists.

AZ is one of the world’s leading experts in quantum theory of mesoscopic systems, including the theory of quantum information processing in superconducting structures. The research conducted by AZ and his collaborators resulted in the prediction or explanation of several effects (e.g., conductance oscillations in 3D point contacts, unusual Josephson effects in s-wave/d-wave Josephson junctions and restricted 2D Josephson junctions) and contributed to establishing the d-wave symmetry of superconducting order parameter in high- Tc superconductors. In the field of quantum engineering, the influential 2003 paper proposing qubit coupling through a nonlinear quantum bus strongly impacted the subsequent development of circuit quantum electrodynamics.

AZ has an outstanding record of successful collaborations with experimentalists: indicating for them new, promising directions of research. These have yielded such results as the continuous observation of Rabi oscillations in a flux qubit using a novel method (Rabi noise spectroscopy); observation of Landau-Zener tunnelling in a superconducting device; demonstration of quantum-optical phenomena in artificial atoms, which launched the research of circuit quantum electrodynamics in open transmission lines. The latter experiments were inspired by the pioneering proposal by AZ and co-authors of a novel class of artificial structures (quantum metamaterials).

The main research interests of AZ are currently in the field of developing quantum engineering, i.e. theory and design of macroscopic quantum coherent structures built from controllable “artificial atoms” (e.g., superconducting qubits) and making full use of their quantum properties. More specifically, it is the development of new theoretical approaches to characterization, design, simulation and optimization of extended quantum coherent structures, and applications of such structures to quantum imaging, sensing and communications.

Prof. Sergey Saveliev (SS) (Gender male), is a Professor of Theoretical Physics and Associate Dean (Research) of the School of Science at Loughborough University. He graduated cum laude from Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (Russia) in 1992 and obtained his PhD from the same institute in 1996. Until 1999 he was a research scientist at All-Russian Electrical Engineering Institute. In 1999-2002 SS was a Research Fellow at University of Tsukuba (Japan), and in 2002-2006 a Senior Researcher at the Institute for Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN) (Japan). Since 2006 SS is employed at the Department of Physics, Loughborough University.

SS is a world class expert on quantum theory of metamaterials, memristors, neuromorphic nanodevices, NEMS and MEMS, THz superconducting electronics, and novel materials. His interests also include quantum computing, molecular rotors and interdisciplinary areas (such as psycho- and econophysics). SS published over 200 articles, a number of which in the top-impact journals, and has a patent, He successfully supervised postdocs and PhD students. SS has a worldwide collaborative network including researchers from top research institutions and universities in Japan, USA, EU and UK. SS and AZ closely and successfully collaborate in areas of their common interest for over a decade.

Dr. Alexander Balanov (AB) (Gender male) is a Senior Lecturer in Physics and Head of the Department of Physics at Loughborough University. He received his MSc (Physics) cum laude (1995) and PhD (Physics) (2000) from Saratov State University (Russia). He worked as a researcher at Saratov State (1995-2000), Lancaster University (UK, 200-2003), Technical University Berlin (Germany, 2003-2005) and University of Nottingham (UK, 2005-2007). Since 2007 AB is a Lecturer (since 2013 Senior Lecturer) at Loughborough University, Department of Physics. AB also has had several honorary visiting positions. AB’s research interests lie in the field of nonlinear and stochastic phenomena in physics, engineering and biology; in particular, nonlinear dynamics of classical and quantum systems. His current research interests focus on dynamical complexity and its control in quantum systems, solid state structures, and on THz applications of semiconductor nanostructures. AB has more than 200 peer reviewed publications, 4 book chapters and a book (A.G. Balanov, N.B. Janson, D.E. Postnov, and O. Sosnovtseva, “Synchronization: from simple to complex”, Springer 2009, 426 pp.) He has supervised several PhD students and postdoctoral researchers.

Patrick Navez (PN) (Gender male) is a Senior Researcher who obtained his PhD in Physics in 1995 at Université Catholique de Louvain. He worked in many universities and research centers across the Europe (Germany, Italy, England, Belgium, Greece, France, Austria) and in Canada.

Among many research topics during his career, he is currently focused on the following topics:

• Quantum electrodynamic description of superconducting qubit array embedded in a microwave cavity
• Development of a new many bodies approach for describing quantum lattice systems: Bose-Hubbard, Fermi-Hubbard, Heisenberg magnet models. It is based on the large coordination number expansion and allows to describe the quantum correlations existing in many physical systems (quantum phase transition, superconductivity, qu-bits, ….).
• Better understanding the physical origin of superfluidity: why perpetual motion without friction exists in nature like liquid Helium, superconductivity, ultra-cold gas.
• SQUIDs used as an accelerometer.

PN has more than 40 peer-reviewed publications in fields above.

Description of any significant infrastructure and/or any major items of technical equipment, relevant to theproposed work

Loughborough University has the High-Performance Computing service, a parallel computing cluster with 161 compute nodes, each having two six-core Intel Westmere Xeon X5650, reserved for research use. It provides powerful means for numerical simulation of multiqubit structures, essential for this project.