- September 22, 2025
- By College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences Staff
The National Science Foundation has awarded a University of Maryland-led research team a four-year, $2 million grant to explore a bold new frontier in quantum materials science.
The mission of the team, which also includes the University of British Columbia (UBC), the University of North Texas, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, is to harness “configurational entropy”—the mixing of multiple elements in a single crystal structure. This could lead to the discovery and control new forms of magnetism, superconductivity and topological states of matter.
“Traditionally, materials scientists try to eliminate disorder when making new compounds,” said Johnpierre Paglione, UMD physics professor and director of the Maryland Quantum Materials Center, who is leading the project. “We’re flipping that idea around—embracing disorder as a way to stabilize entirely new phases of matter.”
High-entropy materials, first discovered in metallic alloys, contain five or more elements randomly distributed across a lattice site. This chemical “chaos” can give rise to surprising stability and novel properties. The UMD-UBC team aims to extend this concept into the quantum realm, coining a new class of materials that it’s labeled “high-entropy quantum.”
The project will integrate theory, machine learning and high-throughput synthesis to rapidly identify promising compounds, guided by the AFLOW computational platform and sped up by the use of combinatorial thin-film libraries. “This award allows us to couple cutting-edge computation with rapid experimentation, giving us a chance to accelerate discovery on an unprecedented scale,” said Ichiro Takeuchi, UMD materials scientist and co-lead on the project.
Beyond research, the team will contribute to quantum workforce development by expanding UMD’s Quantum Materials Winter School and Machine Learning for Materials Boot Camp, training the next generation of scientists in synthesis, computation and quantum technologies.
The collaboration also includes building a public data repository in collaboration with the NSF-funded UC Santa Barbara Quantum Foundry to share results with the broader scientific community, amplifying the project’s impact through the Materials Genome Initiative.
“With this effort, we’re opening a whole new landscape for discovery,” said Paglione. “High-entropy quantum materials could unlock fundamental properties and quantum technologies we haven’t even imagined yet.”