Correlated quantum transport of electrons up to 360 K (joint colloquium with Institute for Biocomplexity and Informatics) - John Miller

The charge density wave (CDW) is an electron-phonon condensate that forms in transition metal trichalcogenides and other linear chain compounds. CDW electrons can flow en masse, coupled to wavelike ion motion. NbS3, for example, exhibits CDW electron transport up to 360 K (87ºC), well above the human body temperature of 37 ºC. Aharonov-Bohm oscillations of period h/2e in the CDW magneto-conductance of TaS3 rings reveal cooperative quantum behavior, sometimes showing telegraph-like destruction and re-emergence of quantum interference (EPL 97, 57011 (2012)). Our model (PRL 108, 036404 (2012)) proposes that droplets of ±2e quantum solitons and antisolitons, along many parallel chains, nucleate and carry current above a Coulomb blockade threshold field. The Schrödinger equation is treated as an emergent “classical” description of the macrostates, coupled by a tunneling matrix element, and yields excellent agreement with measured transport properties of NbSe3. Our recent mixing experiments suggest the ability to temporally vary both the amplitudes and phases of coupled macrosates, critical to any viable quantum information processing strategies. The talk will conclude with a discussion of quantum electron transport, often correlated with motion of amino acid residues or protons, in biological electron transport chains. Such biological electron transport is crucial to metabolic processes in all self-sufficient living organisms.