Quantum Computers: Importance, Materials Science Challenges, and the Promise of Two-Dimensional Materials

Abstract: Quantum computing offers a fundamentally different approach to information processing by exploiting quantum phenomena such as superposition and entanglement. These effects enable efficient treatment of computational problems that become prohibitive for classical architectures, including molecular simulation, cryptography, optimization, and materials discovery. Despite rapid theoretical and algorithmic advances, the realization of practical quantum computers is constrained primarily by hardware limitations rooted in materials science. Qubit performance is highly sensitive to defects, impurities, and interfacial disorder, which induce decoherence and limit scalability across leading platforms such as superconducting, spin-based, and topological qubits. Consequently, advances in materials synthesis, defect control, and interface engineering are critical to achieving long coherence times and low error rates.

Two-dimensional (2D) materials provide an attractive experimental platform for quantum devices due to their atomic thickness, reduced bulk disorder, and high tunability via electrostatic gating, strain, and layer stacking. The ability to assemble van der Waals heterostructures without lattice-matching constraints enables flexible device architectures, positioning 2D materials as promising building blocks for scalable quantum computing hardware.

Keywords: Quantum computer, Materials science, Decoherence; Van der Waals heterostructures