• Introduction:

The hard drive, phone screen, and even the medical equipment used for hospital exams all contain traces of quantum materials.

These specialized materials, which rely on quantum mechanical effects, have long been the "hidden heroes" of modern technology.

Strangely, 99% of the quantum materials emerging from the lab are stuck on the road to industrialization. Despite their impressive performance, they remain elusive for real-world applications.

What's holding them back?

Is it the high cost or the difficulty of production? A research team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) recently provided the answer.

• Looking for a needle in a haystack

They spent considerable time developing a new evaluation framework, analyzing 16,000 quantum materials in one fell swoop. They not only identified the core issues hindering industrialization but also selected 31 promising materials that balance performance and practicality. This incident not only serves as a wake-up call for the scientific community, but it could also accelerate the implementation of next-generation microelectronics and medical diagnostic technologies by several years. The power of quantum materials lies in their physical properties, which are dominated by quantum mechanical effects.

For example, some materials can conduct electricity with zero resistance under certain conditions, while others can precisely capture electromagnetic waves. These properties have excited researchers.

Over the past few years, the number of newly discovered quantum materials in laboratories around the world has increased severalfold, and papers have been published one after another. However, the number of such materials that have truly reached mass production and market can be counted on one hand.

What is the problem? Many researchers initially attributed the problem to "immature technology," believing that a few more years of research would solve the problem. However, the MIT research team discovered that this is simply not the case.

Their analysis revealed that many highly anticipated quantum materials have been plagued by "industrialization flaws" from the moment they were "born." Either the elements that make up the materials are extremely rare, making mining prohibitively expensive.

Or the production process produces large amounts of pollutants, resulting in a prohibitive environmental cost. Some materials rely on imports, and even the slightest problem in the supply chain can lead to production interruptions. Take, for example, a previously popular topological insulator material, which efficiently conducts electrons in the laboratory and is considered an ideal material for next-generation chips.

However, the MIT team calculated the costs and discovered that the rare metals contained in this material cost over 20,000 yuan per kilogram. Furthermore, 90% of global production is concentrated in a single country. Even small-batch applications, let alone large-scale production, face prohibitive costs and supply chain risks.

Associate Professor Mingda Li of the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering put it bluntly: "Those working on quantum materials used to focus solely on physical properties, believing that cost and environmental considerations were the sole concerns of industry and had nothing to do with basic research.

But now it seems that if these considerations are not taken into account from the outset, even the most promising material will ultimately remain in a lab sample box."

To overcome this current focus on research without considering applications, the MIT team spent over a year developing an evaluation framework that comprehensively assesses quantum materials.

The core idea of ​​this framework is to move beyond focusing solely on a material's quantum performance and instead consider three key factors simultaneously: quantum performance, economic costs, and environmental impact.

First, the "quantum performance account." The team previously developed an AI model and proposed the concept of "quantum weight." This "quantum weight" is like a material's "quantum strength score." The higher the weight, the stronger the material's quantum properties. For example, the more pronounced the electronic quantum fluctuations, the greater the potential for application in specific fields.

Using this model, they accurately scored the "quantum strength" of 16,000 materials.

Next, the "economic cost account." Based on the material's elemental composition, the team examines the mining and processing costs of each element, while also considering the stability of the supply chain.

For example, if a material contains scarce resources like lithium and cobalt, its cost score will be high; if its reliance on imports exceeds 50%, its supply chain resilience score will be lower. Finally, the "environmental impact account."

• Quantum Materials Succeed

They calculate the carbon emissions and pollutants generated throughout the material's entire life cycle, from mining to processing, and even consider the ecological impact of the mining process.

For example, the mining of some rare earth elements pollutes hundreds of square meters of land for every ton produced. Therefore, these materials would have a very low environmental impact score. Adding up the scores for these three aspects clearly reveals the "industrialization potential" of each material. The team discovered a key pattern in their analysis: a material's quantum weight is almost positively correlated with its cost and environmental impact.

Materials with higher quantum weights tend to be more expensive and more environmentally damaging. This explains why many high-performance quantum materials have struggled to achieve large-scale application.

Lecturer Ellan Spero from the Department of Materials Science and Engineering said, "Industry desperately needs low-cost quantum materials, but currently, it's difficult to find even one material in a hundred that meets both high quantum weight and low cost requirements.

This framework helps us identify in advance which materials are worth investing time in for in-depth research and which have no potential for commercialization from the outset."

After multiple rounds of screening, 200 materials from the 16,000 materials emerged as candidates for their environmental sustainability. A further 31 materials, achieving the optimal balance between quantum performance, cost, and environmental impact, became the team's top candidates for industrialization.

The majority of these 31 materials are topological materials. These materials possess unique electronic structures, resulting in exceptional performance in areas such as electrical conductivity and energy harvesting.

For example, some topological materials can achieve a theoretical solar energy conversion efficiency of 89%, while the theoretical efficiency limit for mainstream conventional solar cells is only 34%.

Even more impressively, these topological materials can absorb electromagnetic waves across the entire wavelength range, even collecting heat emitted by the human body and converting it into electricity.

Previously, these properties had only been demonstrated in the laboratory, and it was unclear whether they could be scaled up for production.

The assessment framework has now revealed that some topological materials are composed of common elements, such as low-cost elements like silicon and carbon, and have low carbon emissions during mining and processing, along with a stable supply chain.

This offers hope to the industry. Professor Tomas Palacios of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science revealed that semiconductor companies have already contacted them, hoping to conduct experimental verification on these selected materials.

• Broad Prospects

"Some companies, after reading our evaluation reports, immediately said, 'This is exactly the material we're looking for.' We will work with them to further test the actual performance of these materials and strive to advance to mass production as soon as possible."

These topological materials have a wide range of applications. Besides being used in high-efficiency solar cells, they can also be used in next-generation microelectronic chips, reducing their energy consumption by more than half. In medical diagnostics, sensors made from topological materials can more accurately detect early-stage cancer cells.

Even in the field of energy harvesting, topological material chips might be implanted in clothing to convert heat generated by human movement into electricity to charge mobile phones.

This research by the MIT team not only identified 31 promising materials, but more importantly, it serves as a wake-up call for the entire quantum materials research community: research can no longer be conducted in isolation; the potential for industrialization must be considered from the outset.

In the past, many researchers considered topics like "cost" and "environmental" too "mundane" and less "advanced" than studying quantum properties. However, Associate Professor Mingda Li believes that cost and environmental impact will become mandatory considerations in quantum materials research over the next decade.

"The world is promoting green technology and sustainable development. Even if your material has exceptional performance, if you don't consider these factors, it will be difficult to secure industry investment, let alone enter the market."

Associate Professor Farnaz Niroui of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science also emphasized, "In the early stages of material development, it's crucial to consider factors such as scalability, raw material availability, and environmental impact. If these issues aren't discovered until later in the research process, the years of research invested previously may be wasted."

• Conclusion:

The MIT team has already published the core methodology of this evaluation framework and plans to further refine the model in collaboration with the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy.

They hope that more research institutions and companies will adopt this framework, reducing the pitfalls of quantum materials research and accelerating the transition from the laboratory to real-world applications.

After all, whether it's more efficient solar cells or more precise medical devices, they ultimately need to be put into practical use to truly transform our lives. What the MIT team does is to help these quantum materials connect the last mile from "laboratory" to "market."