Linke Lab's Work Cited

Research by a team that includes Assistant Professor Norbert Linke, UMD physics graduate student Nhung Hong Nguyen, and visiting graduate student Cinthia Huerta Alderete has been selected as one of the 2019 Top Picks in Computer Architecture by IEEE Micro. The work, which compared different kinds of quantum computers, was a collaboration with scientists from Princeton and IBM.linke groupCinthia Huerta Alderete, Nhung Hong Nguyen, and Norbert Linke.

IEEE Micro evaluates submissions to all computer architecture conferences that take place throughout the year and selects 12 as Top Picks for their novelty and potential for long-term impact. They invite Top Pick authors to prepare an article for the year’s special issue, which was published in May 2020.

The article contributed by Linke and his colleagues, “Architecting Noisy Intermediate-Scale Quantum Computers: A Real-System Study,” benchmarked seven different quantum computers with diverse architectures using the team’s novel cross-platform compilation tool. The quantum computers tested included superconducting qubit-based implementations from IBM and Rigetti as well as UMD’s own trapped ion quantum computer, which outperformed the other platforms in a series of standard quantum tasks.Linke Lab figure image 600x116The team compared the success rate of seven different quantum across different tasks. (Figure courtesy of the authors.)

“The fact that quantum computer architecture and benchmarking is recognized by IEEE Micro shows that this potentially revolutionary technology has reached the mainstream of computer science,” says Linke.

IEEE Micro has selected Top Picks for the last 16 years. This year, the journal received 96 submissions, with only one other quantum computing publication receiving the Top Pick honor.

Original story by Dina Genkina

Maissam Barkeshli Promoted to Associate Professor

Maissam Barkeshli has been promoted to the rank of Associate Professor, effective July 1, 2020.barkeshli maissamMaissam Barkeshli Barkeshli received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Afterward, he was a Simons Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University and a postdoctoral researcher at Microsoft's Station Q at the University of California, Santa Barbara. A theoretical condensed matter physicist interested in complex quantum many-body phenomena, Barkeshli explores the many ways that atoms and electrons—prototypical quantum particles—can combine in large numbers to produce a range of novel behaviors.  

Barkeshli is a member of the Condensed Matter Theory Center and a fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute.  While at UMD, he has won an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation. He also received the Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship from the UMD Department of Physics.

 

Ki-Yong Kim Promoted to Full Professor

Ki-Yong Kim has been promoted to the rank of Professor, effective July 1, 2020. Kim earned his Ph.D. at the University of Maryland and received the Marshall N. Rosenbluth Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award from the Kim KiYong 2020Ki-Yong KimAmerican Physical Society. After a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellowship at Los Alamos National Laboratory, he joined the UMD faculty in 2008. He has received a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, a Department of Energy Early Career Research Award and the Richard A. Ferrell Distinguished Faculty Fellowship from the UMD Department of Physics.

Kim uses ultrashort light pulses (<10-13 seconds) in a broad spectral range (from terahertz to X-rays) to excite and probe phenomena occurring at the atomic and molecular level. Applications range from medical imaging to chemistry to national security. 

Hafezi Named Simons Investigator

Associate Professor Mohammad Hafezi has been named a  2020 Simons Investigator in Physics by the New York-based Simons Foundation. Simons Investigator Awards in Mathematics, Physics, Astrophysics and Computer Science support outstanding theoretical scientists in their most productive years, Hafezi SimonsMohammad Hafeziwhen they are establishing creative new research directions, providing leadership to the field and effectively mentoring junior scientists. 

Hafezi holds appointments in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Department of Physics, is a fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute and is a member of the Institute for Research in Electronics & Applied Physics, and Quantum Technology Center. He is known for his contributions in a number of works to synthesize and characterize quantum many-body and topological physics beyond electronic systems. Examples of his contributions include cold atoms, and superconducting qubits and photons, which have helped shape the field of topological photonics. Some of his current interests include efficient characterization and probing of many-body properties in quantum simulators. His research group is currently exploring the application of quantum optics to create, probe and manipulate correlated electron systems.

Simons Investigators are appointed for an initial period of five years with the option for renewal for an additional five years, upon the evaluation of scientific impact of the Investigator. An Investigator receives research support of $100,000 per year, and an additional $10,000 per year is provided to the Investigator’s department.

Prof. Christopher Jarzynski was also named a 2020 Simons Fellow, as were Jacob Bedrossian of the Department of Mathematics and the Center for Scientific Computation and Mathematical Modeling and Professor Leonid Koralov of the Department of Mathematics.

 

Phillip Warren Mange, 1925 - 2020

Phillip W. Mange died June on 18, 2020 at the age of 95. Dr. Mange, who received his Ph.D. in physics from the Pennsylvania State University, was a Senior Scientist at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) until his retirement in 1993. Afterwards, he served as a tutor in the Slawsky Clinic for 11 years until returning to his hometown of Kalamazoo, Michigan. 

In 2002-03, he discussed his career—which included work abroad as part of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957-58 and his ionospheric research for NRL—as part of the AIP Oral History program: https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/31144-1