October_AMP_Digital

A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | O C T O B E R 2 0 2 0 5 ADVANCED CASTING RESEARCH CENTER MOVES TO UCI The Advanced Casting Research Center (ACRC) has relocated to the Uni- versity of California, Irvine (UCI), effec- tive July 1. Formerly, ACRC was based at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in Massachusetts. Founding director Diran Apelian, FASM, was recently appointed Distinguished Professor at UCI’s depart- ment of materials science and engineer- ing. Earlier this year, he retired from his position as Alcoa-Howmet professor of mechanical engineering at WPI after 30 years. Apelian is widely recognized for his innovativework inmetal process- ing and his leadership as a researcher and educator. Under Apelian’s direc- tion, the center will continue to bring fundamental understanding to existing processes, develop new methods, and address management-technology in- terface issues with industrial partners. ACRC provides a collaborative en- vironment in which members, faculty, and students discuss challenges in the metal casting andmanufacturing indus- try, specifically in two main domains— alloy development and novel process- es. The center was founded in 1985 with a small group of companies to advance RESEARCH TRACKS the use of light metals. Over the years, it has become one of the larger indus- try-university alliances in North Amer- ica carrying out fundamental research with clear industrial applications. With its new home in Southern California, ACRC will expand the consortium to meet the needs of manufacturers on the West Coast, including suppliers to the aerospace and defense industries. To support the activities of ACRC, UCI’s state-of-the-art metal processing facili- ty includes a modern foundry (ferrous and non-ferrous), vacuum arc melting, atomization unit, Buehler Center for metallography, Olympus microscopy suite, mechanical testing facilities, and nondestructive evaluation equipment. acrc.manufacturing.uci.edu. PROBING QUBITS WITH MATERIALS SCIENCE The DOE’s Fermilab, Batavia, Illi- nois, was recently chosen to lead one of five national centers to bring about transformational advances in quantum information science as part of the U.S. National Quantum Initiative. The initia- tive will fund the new Superconduct- ing Quantum Materials and Systems (SQMS) Center, with the goal of building an advanced quantum computer based on superconducting technologies. The cen- ter will also develop new quantum sen- sors, which could lead to the discovery of the nature of dark matter and other elusive sub- atomic particles. To- tal planned DOE fund- ing for the center is $115 million over five years. SQMS will also receive an additional $8 million in match- ing contributions from center partners. The new center is part of a $625 million federal program to facilitate and fos- ter quantum innovation in the U.S. The leaps in quantum computing and sens- ing that SQMS aims for will be enabled by a unique multidisciplinary collabora- tion that includes 20 partners from the national laboratories, academic institu- tions, and industry. At the heart of SQMS research will be solving one of the most pressing problems in quantum information sci- ence: the length of time that a qubit, the basic element of a quantum computer, can maintain information, also called quantum coherence. To advance coher- ence, SQMS collaborators will launch a materials science investigation to gain insights into the fundamental limit- ing mechanisms of cavities and qubits, working to understand the quantum properties of superconductors and oth- er materials used at the nanoscale and in the microwave regime. Northwest- ern University, Ames Laboratory, Fermi- lab, Rigetti Computing, NIST, the Italian National Institute for Nuclear Physics, NASA Ames Research Center, and sever- al universities are partnering to contrib- ute world-class materials science and superconductivity expertise to target sources of decoherence. sqms.fnal.gov. Diran Apelian, FASM, director and founder of the Advanced Casting Research Center. The Superconducting QuantumMaterials and Systems Center plans to build a highly advanced quantum computer. Courtesy of Reidar Hahn/Fermilab.