JQI Seminar: Jeremy Levy

Title: Programmable Quantum Matter: Correlated Nanoelectronics as a Platform for
Analog Quantum Simulation

Abstract: The second quantum revolution demands novel approaches to control quantum matter at nanoscale dimensions. In this talk I will explore how our research at the intersection of correlated nanoelectronics, nanophotonics, and programmable quantum materials forms aunified approach to analog quantum simulation. Beginning with LaAlO3/SrTiO3 interfaces, I will demonstrate how nanoscale reconfigurability enables the discovery of exotic quantum phases, including electron pairing outside the superconducting state and degenerate quantum liquids formed from bound states of multiple electrons. This reconfigurability extends to engineered chirality. Nanowires written with an electron potential that lacks mirror symmetry show pairing that survives to 18 T, along with conductance oscillations we attribute to coherent singlet- triplet mixing driven by an engineered axial spin-orbit interaction. Engineered chirality serves two purposes. These waveguides are one-dimensional quantum simulators of chiral induced spin selectivity (CISS), where the pitch, radius, and interaction strength can be programmed. They are also probes of chiral matter itself: coupled to chiral molecular monolayers, they use Onsager reciprocity as a built-in control, and an antisymmetric magnetotransconductance appears out of equilibrium, in the unpaired regime, and is absent in control devices without molecules. I will then discuss how we have expanded this paradigm to van der Waals materials using ultra-low-voltage electron beam lithography to create arbitrary electrostatic patterns unbound by crystal symmetries. Ferroelectric superlattices written into AlBN beneath monolayer graphene produce Dirac cone replicas and Hofstadter minibands at periods below 20 nm, without a twist. This platform, a solid-state analogue of the quantum gas microscope, anchors our PEER-QM program in flat-band engineering, Fermi-Hubbard physics, and programmable quasiparticle interferometry. Freestanding and twist-assembled oxide membranes bring the same ideas back to complex oxides, which we now probe with a quantum twisting microscope built in our laboratory. Throughout these material systems we leverage nanophotonic capabilities, including rewritable photodetectors and difference frequency generation at nanojunctions, and most recently electric-field-induced second harmonic generation, where a written junction serves as both a deeply subwavelength optical source and a near-field detector. These complementary approaches, spanning complex oxides, van der Waals materials, and molecular assemblies, share a common vision: creating quantum systems where electronic, magnetic, and optical properties can be programmed with nanoscale precision, enabling both fundamental insights into quantum matter and practical pathways toward quantum information technologies.

*You will need to bring your cell phone, so you can sign in using the QR code outside of ATL 2400.  You will need to submit your first and last name, email, and affiliation on the form by 11:15am to be able to get lunch after the seminar.  Lunch is first come, first served.*

At 4pm, there will be a tea in ATL 2117 for our speaker and students/postdocs - this is a chance to ask questions directly to our speaker. Refreshments will be served.