September 26th, 2025 MIT Physicist Dr. Jagadeesh Moodera :Electron Spin and Superconductivity Drives Information Age and Computing Technology: Quantum Computers

The revolution in information storage, communication, and the recent emergence of artificial intelligence (AI) is growing at an unprecedented rate. To keep up with the demands there needs to be extensive technological development, needing a similar revolution in computer processing, nonvolatile (permanent) memory, in-memory computing as in neuromorphic computing, and sensing. While the electron tunneling phenomenon (due to wave nature of electrons) has richly contributed to our understanding of various branches of physics over the years, electron spin (the magnetic part) tunneling has transformed the magnetic storage industry termed as spintronics. Our fundamental curiosity led to the discovery of tunnel magnetoresistance - large electron spin dependent current flow in magnetic tunnel junctions (MTJ, a very sensitive trilayer system consisting of two ultrathin magnetic films separated by a few ‘atomic’ layers of an insulator). This signaled a transformational breakthrough to computer processing/storage industry and sensor technology. This is evident by the exponential increase in data processing and storage capabilities reaching several trillion bits in a standard computer hard drive costing $100. The super sensitive MTJ sensors are making their ubiquitous presence in all sections of society – from AI controlled automobiles to medical diagnostics (magnetic encephalography) to terrestrial and space exploration.

As computing power demands continue to rise, superconducting electronics (SCE) are playing an increasingly important role; essential to progress towards energy-efficient high-end computing and moderate the escalating power consumption by data centers. Such SCE would enable energy efficient supercomputing, and in turn, immensely benefit society, among others, the medical diagnostics and discovery, national security dark matter detection etc. This requires superconducting analogues of semiconducting devices: such as superconducting diode (SD) rectifiers for efficient power delivery, passive nonvolatile superconducting memory and logic devices for operating at cryogenic temperatures (~ – 4600 F). There could be > 1000X reduction in size and power requirement, mitigating the present limitations in superconducting qubit (a basic unit of quantum computing with multi-state capability unlike the classical binary unit, 0 or 1.) stability and scalability, control and readout while achieving complex circuits. Dr. Moodera highlights his recent work in this direction with a variety of thin film superconducting devices such as SD and nonvolatile superconducting memory elements consisting of a superconductor layer subjected to exchange fields (the magnetic interaction at the atomic level) when sandwiched between two magnetic insulators. Development of these nanoscale devices with rich functionality for seamless on-chip integration would open the world for realizing superconducting quantum and classical computers.

MIT Physicist Dr. Jagadeesh Moodera is a Senior Research Scientist and Group Leader in the Physics Department, Francis Bitter Magnet Lab and the Plasma Science and Fusion Center MIT. He is a Distinguished Visiting Professor, IQC, University of Waterloo; Visiting Professor, Applied Physics Department, Technical University of Eindhoven; Distinguished Institute Professor, IIT Madras; and Distinguished Foreign Scientist at NPL, Delhi. His research interests include manipulating electron spin in solids - spin tunneling, spin filtering and interfacial exchange coupling; molecular spintronics - molecular-scale spin memory; ferromagnet/superconductor heterostructure towards superconducting quantum devices and spintronics; quantum transport in topological driven systems and heterostructures: atomic scale interface exchange phenomena - magnetic and electrical transport studies’ and the search for Majorana bound states in unconventional superconductors. He has served on the Board of External Experts at National High Field Lab (Florida, 2018) and High Pulsed Field Lab at Los Alamos Lab (2024); the national research program committees of Austria, France, Holland, England, India and Ireland. Dr. Moodera was Elected Fellow of the American Physical Society, and AAAS. He is the recipient of the IBM, TDK Research Awards, and the Oliver E. Buckley Condensed Matter Prize of American Physical Society.