During its First Year, APS Unit Gives Quantum Materials Synthesis a Home

It’s been a big year for all things quantum: This spring, in honor of the 100th anniversary of quantum mechanics, the United Nations proclaimed 2025 the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology.

One group of physicists is celebrating another quantum science milestone this October: the first anniversary of APS’s newest unit, the Topical Group on Quantum Materials Synthesis (GQMS). The unit is a gathering place for scientists who develop, synthesize, and study new quantum materials.

“So many new things can be done [with quantum materials],” says Sang-Wook Cheong, a Rutgers University physicist and founding member of GQMS. “A lot of things have never even been touched theoretically, experimentally.”

Put simply, the umbrella of quantum materials covers materials that show strong electron correlations or spin-orbit interactions, says Gang Cao, a physicist at the University of Colorado Boulder and chair of GQMS. It includes superconductors, Mott and topological insulators, quantum spin liquids, and other materials whose properties can’t be well described by classical approximations.

“The science and technology of materials synthesis are at the heart of the discovery, design, and realization of novel quantum materials that underpin quantum technologies,” says Cao. The reason that “realistic quantum computers are at least many decades away is because we don't have the right materials.”

Historically, the physics community considered people who synthesized new materials to be technicians rather than scientists, but “in recent years, this has changed,” Cao says. That is likely due, in part, to increased investments in quantum materials research, access to tools for studying materials, recognition of materials-related discoveries (like blue LEDs), and demand for materials with novel properties.

As the community has recognized the science behind synthesis and the potential of quantum materials, more physicists have joined the action.

The quantum material synthesis community is huge now, encompassing physicists, chemists, biologists, and engineers, Cao says. But they’re dispersed. A few years ago, Cao, Cheong, and others attending a small-scale quantum materials synthesis conference realized that the larger community needed a place to share progress and explore common challenges. They decided to petition APS to establish the new unit. Since its founding, 270 people have joined.

Synthesizing quantum materials with desired properties can be challenging. For example, many novel quantum states predicted by theory have yet to be realized experimentally, Cao says — and not for lack of trying. “So then you wonder, ‘What’s wrong?’” he says. The answer might lie in the synthesis process itself.

Say theory predicts that a certain material will be superconducting, but years of synthesis efforts do not achieve that result. Maybe the theory is wrong, but maybe conventional synthesis techniques allow distortions in the materials that impede the desired property, he says. If so, new or modified synthesis methods could potentially produce the desired property.

Cao hopes that discussing these questions as a community will lead to greater progress. The unit welcomes anyone working on the synthesis of bulk single crystals, thin films, 2D materials, or nanostructures, or on characterization approaches. Having those groups talk to each other could have a huge benefit, Cheong says.

Next March, during the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology, GQMS will bring these groups together at the APS Global Physics Summit — the joint March and April Meeting — where the unit is planning to organize several focus sessions and a symposium.