ExpandQISE: Track 2: Research and Education Center for Quantum Materials and Sensing at a Women’s College

The project aims to establish a Research and Education Center for Quantum Materials and Sensing at Bryn Mawr College, a Women's College with a small co-educational graduate program. The Center plans to integrate resources from higher education, an existing NSF-funded quantum center at the Johns Hopkins University, national labs, and industry to advance research in quantum materials and quantum sensing and to transform education and workforce development. This project is expected to develop new quantum materials and enhance quantum metrology, leading to potential applications with broad societal benefits, such as energy-efficient electronics and enhanced biomedical imaging. The development of atomistic modeling strategies, machine learning, and quantum computing algorithms can significantly benefit other science and engineering fields. The proposed education and workforce development focus on broadening the participation of women and other underrepresented groups in Quantum Information Science and Engineering (QISE) at all levels and developing a pipeline from high school to college to graduate education and industry.

Five researchers and educators from Bryn Mawr College, along with collaborators from Johns Hopkins University, Colorado State University, University of Pennsylvania, and Ursinus College, propose to expand the research scope of the existing Bryn Mawr Nanomaterials and Spintronics Lab and Atomic and Optical Physics Lab and establish a Research and Education Center for Quantum Materials and Sensing at Bryn Mawr College. The Center's research is built around three highly interlinked thrusts: quantum materials, quantum sensing, and QISE education research. The Center's research methodology includes closed-loop quantum material design by combining theoretical calculation, atomistic modeling, and experiments; state-of-the-art floating zone crystal growth, thin-film deposition, and nanofabrication methods; synchrotron x-ray techniques and nitrogen-vacancy (NV) center-based quantum metrology; and evidence-based education research and Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies. The Center's research activities are expected to (1) develop high-quality crystals, thin films, nanodisks, and devices that host nanometer-sized skyrmions with the helicity degree of freedom; (2) advance the NV-qubit based cryogenic nanoscale spatial mapping of spin structures; (3) enhance understanding of fundamental magnetic properties of centrosymmetric frustrated magnets, covalent 2D magnets, and magnetic nanodisks; (4) provide experimental evidence of the quantum nature of nanoskyrmions and pave the way for building a new type of macroscopic qubit -- skyrmion qubits; and (5) advance QISE education by integrating NLP technologies and developing teaching resources with paired assessment tools for undergraduate and K-12 education.