Bio: Christopher Lane received his Ph.D. in Physics from Northeastern University in 2019. In the same year, he joined Los Alamos National Laboratory as a Postdoctoral Research Associate in the Quantum and Condensed Matter Physics Group (T-4) of the Theoretical Division. In 2020, he became a Director’s Postdoctoral Fellow, and in 2021 he was converted to staff. Lane is a recipient of the LDRD Early Career Research Award. His expertise includes first-principle quantum simulations and ab initio-based many-body perturbation theory calculations with a focus on modeling the electronic structure and spectroscopy of correlated d- and f-electron materials, 2D thin films, and their heterostructures.

Identifying Topological Superconductivity for Qubit Platforms

Abstract: With our entrance into the noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) era in just the last few years, greater focus has been placed on quantum error mitigation to enable sustainable quantum supremacy. This ever-growing issue stems from the short coherence times plaguing current qubit platforms, requiring ever more overhead generated by error correction. To remedy this, Majorana fermion modes have been proposed as a class of topologically protected qubits that are immune to conventional decoherence sources. Topological superconductors are believed to host such exotic quasiparticles. So far, very few material realizations have been theoretically predicted, let alone experimentally verified. In this talk, I will present some of our recent efforts developing a first-principles-based methodology [1,2] to identify topological superconductivity across a broad class of quantum materials. Specifically, I will discuss results in the two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide family of materials that reveal a variety of topologically trivial and non-trivial superconducting states [1].

[1] Christopher Lane and Jian-Xin Zhu. Phys. Rev. Materials 6, 094001 (2022).
[2] Christopher Lane. Phys. Rev. B 113, 144508 (2026)