A multidisciplinary collaboration within the Illinois Grainger Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) has received a four-year, $4.8 million award from the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) and the Army Research Office Laboratory of Physical Sciences (ARO/LPS). The initiative is intended to address a critical knowledge gap in superconducting quantum hardware by studying the origins of Two-Level System (TLS) defects.
TLS defects are uncontrolled two-state quantum systems that have the same energy scales as the desired qubit, causing dissipation of quantum information and acting as a major limiting factor for superconducting hardware quality. The research, led by physics professor Angela Kou, employs a systematic process involving multiple departments (Physics, Materials Science and Engineering, and Electrical and Computer Engineering).
The methodology follows a loop of growth, characterization, and theory. Researchers will use molecular beam epitaxy to grow superconducting qubit devices atom by atom. They will then apply transmission electron microscopy to capture the behaviors of individual atoms and microwave characterization to measure information loss. Finally, a theorist will use atomic-scale simulation to calculate the properties of different defects for comparison with observed data.
The outcome of the study is intended to provide a “recipe for reducing the occurrence of TLS defects” to improve the performance of superconducting quantum processors (used by companies like Google, IBM, and Rigetti). The co-administration of the award by the AFOSR and ARO/LPS underscores the national security relevance of solving this critical hardware problem.
Read the full announcement here.
November 14, 2025
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