Spotlight on new faculty: Angela Kou, Condensed Matter

Professor Angela Kou

Angela Kou is a new faculty member joining Illinois Physics and the Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center (IQUIST) in August 2020. Her work is at the interface between condensed matter physics and quantum information science, with a focus on topological materials. Angela works with these unique materials “both from the bottom up and from the top down.” That is, she is interested in “building new topological materials by coupling superconducting qubits to each other,” as well as in examining the characteristics of materials that have been theorized to have topological properties. Her work has implications for the future of quantum information, because she is discovering ways to create more robust qubits by limiting the impact of local noise, thus reducing information loss. Angela also plans to build a scanning tool to investigate the modes at the edges of topological materials, which will provide new insights about the nature of the materials themselves. Because her research relies on interdisciplinary collaborations with both theorists and experimentalists, the University of Illinois is the ideal home for Angela’s research program.

Angela will be seeking graduate and undergraduate researchers for Fall 2020. If you are interested in working in her lab, please contact her directly at akou@illinois.edu.