Maryam Ghazisaeidi receiving estimated $7.5M from DOD as part of MURI Program

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Ohio State University and University of Chicago faculty MURI team 2023
Clockwise from top left: Maryam Ghazisaeidi, Tyler Grassman, Roberto Myers, Giulia Galli, David Awschalom

 

Materials Science and Engineering professor Maryam Ghazisaeidi has received funding from the U.S. Department of Defense for work connecting dislocations of mechanical metallurgy to condensed matter physics for quantum applications.

The DOD selected 31 research teams across 61 U.S. academic institutions as part of their Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) Program.1 

Professor Ghazisaeidi is the lead PI for the multidisciplinary project Dislocations as One Dimensional Quantum Matters. This effort builds on ideas from mechanical metallurgy to propose an entirely new way of addressing major challenges in quantum computing.

The team will develop and employ an integrated computational-experimental framework to predict, create, and control line defects in crystals and their interaction with quantum bits (qubits) which are the units of information in quantum computing and quantum information. A new paradigm of materials will be designed by combining mechanical metallurgy, semiconductor epitaxy, and solid-state quantum information, becoming the foundational science underpinning the production of highly scalable patterned spin qubit networks. 

An estimated $7.5M will support the multidisciplinary research team over five years. This program will firmly position The Ohio State University as a leading force in the rapidly growing field of quantum computing and quantum materials, solidifying its prominent role among the key players in this cutting-edge domain.

Multidisciplinary team

The Ohio State University  |  Department of Materials Science and Engineering

Professor Ghazisaeidi is a leading expert in the theory and atomic-scale modeling of dislocations as well as electronic structure calculations. Professor Roberto Myers is a prominent expert in heterostructure design for exploring spintronic and magnetic phenomena, including the first observation of the spin-Hall effect and later the spin-Seebeck effect in semiconductors with Awschalom. Professor Tyler Grassman is an expert in the epitaxy of mismatched semiconductor materials and devices and in the use of ECCI for their characterization. Several students and postdocs at Ohio State will be hired to help with the research.

University of Chicago  |  Pritzker School for Molecular Engineering

The collaborative research team includes co-PIs and Liew Family Professors David Awschalom and Giulia Galli. Galli and Awschalom are renowned pioneers in creating novel computational and experimental techniques that have helped establish an understanding of spin coherence and dynamics for quantum computing applications.

Dislocations as One Dimensional Quantum Matters and the 30 other projects selected as part of the 2023 MURI Program will continue the 38-year legacy of multi-disciplinary research supporting the Department of Defense's military capabilities. 

Not only does the program enable scientific breakthroughs with direct relevance for DoD applications, it also has been used to create and sustain new fields of inquiry. It is a program with a powerful legacy of scientific impact and remains a cornerstone of DoD’s basic research portfolio.

Ms. Heidi Shyu, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering

 

1 U.S. Department of Defense. Fiscal Year 2023 Research Funding Awards. www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3336228/fiscal-year-2023-research-funding-awards/. Published March 21, 2023. Accessed May 3, 2023.