About

Amir Yacoby is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and of Applied Physics at Harvard University, affiliated with the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. His primary teaching area is Applied Physics. His research areas include Applied Physics and Quantum Engineering, with a focus on exploring quantum effects in materials such as twisted trilayer graphene and 2D materials. His work involves investigating supermoiré engineering, twistronics, and the development of quantum devices and applications. Yacoby's contributions are recognized within the fields of electrical engineering, materials science, and mechanical engineering, and he is actively involved in advancing understanding of exotic quantum particles and phenomena.

Research topics

• Physics
• Nanotechnology
• Quantum mechanics
• Condensed matter physics
• Materials science

Selected publications

• Vortex-parity-controlled diode effect in Corbino topological Josephson junctions

  ArXiv.org · 2026-01-20

  articleOpen access

  Nonreciprocal supercurrents in Josephson junctions have recently emerged as a sensitive tool for investigating broken symmetries in superconducting quantum materials. Here, we report an even-odd Josephson diode effect (JDE) in Corbino-geometry junctions fabricated on the pristine surface of a bulk-insulating three-dimensional topological insulator (3DTI). We find that the diode polarity, which indicates the preferred direction of supercurrent flow, robustly alternates its sign depending on the parity (even or odd) of the enclosed vortex number. This behavior is absent in two key control devices: a non-topological graphene Corbino Josephson junction and a 3DTI-based linear Josephson junction. These results indicate that the polarity-tunable JDE is intrinsically linked to the unique combination of the proximitized topological superconductivity in the 3DTI surface and the Corbino device's closed-loop geometry. Our theoretical modeling attributes the observed sign change in diode polarity to the alternating sign of periodic boundary conditions in topological superconductors, supporting the interpretation that the vortex-parity-controlled JDE is a direct manifestation of the underlying Andreev bound state topology associated with the presence of non-Abelian anyons in the vortices.

  PublisherOA PDF

• Magnon hydrodynamics in an atomically thin ferromagnet

  Science · 2026-05-21

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Strong interactions between particles can lead to emergent collective excitations. Spin waves, known as magnons, have been predicted to reach a strongly interacting hydrodynamic regime, where they form a slow collective density mode. In this work, we isolate exfoliated sheets of chromium trichloride (CrCl 3 ), where magnon interactions are strong, and develop a technique to measure the collective magnon dynamics though nearby nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. Thermal magnetic fluctuations generated by monolayer CrCl 3 increase upon decreasing temperature; this anomalous trend may be a consequence of the damping rate of a low-energy magnon sound mode that sharpens as magnon interactions increase with increasing temperature. By measuring the magnetic fluctuations emitted by thin multilayer CrCl 3 in the presence of a variable-frequency drive field, we obtain spectroscopic evidence for this two-dimensional magnon sound mode.

  PublisherDOI

• Vortex-parity-controlled diode effect in Corbino topological Josephson junctions

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2026-01-20

  preprintOpen access

  Nonreciprocal supercurrents in Josephson junctions have recently emerged as a sensitive tool for investigating broken symmetries in superconducting quantum materials. Here, we report an even-odd Josephson diode effect (JDE) in Corbino-geometry junctions fabricated on the pristine surface of a bulk-insulating three-dimensional topological insulator (3DTI). We find that the diode polarity, which indicates the preferred direction of supercurrent flow, robustly alternates its sign depending on the parity (even or odd) of the enclosed vortex number. This behavior is absent in two key control devices: a non-topological graphene Corbino Josephson junction and a 3DTI-based linear Josephson junction. These results indicate that the polarity-tunable JDE is intrinsically linked to the unique combination of the proximitized topological superconductivity in the 3DTI surface and the Corbino device's closed-loop geometry. Our theoretical modeling attributes the observed sign change in diode polarity to the alternating sign of periodic boundary conditions in topological superconductors, supporting the interpretation that the vortex-parity-controlled JDE is a direct manifestation of the underlying Andreev bound state topology associated with the presence of non-Abelian anyons in the vortices.

  PublisherDOI

• Probing electromagnetic nonreciprocity with quantum geometry of photonic states

  Physical Review Research · 2025-04-02 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Reciprocal and nonreciprocal effects in dielectric and magnetic materials provide crucial information about the microscopic properties of electrons. However, experimentally distinguishing the two has proven to be challenging, especially when the associated effects are extremely small. To this end, we propose a contactless detection using a cross-cavity device where a material of interest is placed at its center. We show that the optical properties of the material, such as Kerr and Faraday rotation, or birefringence, manifest in the coupling between the cavity's electromagnetic modes and in the shift of their resonant frequencies. By calculating the dynamics of a geometrical photonic state, we formulate a measurement protocol based on the quantum metric and quantum process tomography that isolates the individual components of the material's complex refractive index and minimizes the quantum mechanical Cramér-Rao bound on the variance of the associated parameter estimation. Our approach is expected to be applicable across a broad spectrum of experimental platforms including Fock states in optical cavities, or coherent states in microwave and THz resonators.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Coherent manipulation of interacting electron qubitson solid neon

  arXiv (Cornell University) · 2025-03-31

  preprintOpen access

  Electrons trapped on solid neon surfaces serve as low-noise charge qubits with long coherence times and high operational fidelities. Such charge qubits offer full electrical control and compact device footprints, convenient for scaling up with quantum circuits. Realizing two-qubit gates on this platform is a critical step towards practical quantum information processing. In this work, we report the first experimental demonstration of coherent manipulation of multiple interacting electron-on-solid-neon (eNe) charge qubits. By exploiting the electrons naturally confined in close proximity by the surface structures of solid neon, we have achieved a direct qubit-qubit coupling strength of up to 62.5 MHz, as well as implemented cross-resonance (CR) and bSWAP two-qubit gates using global microwave drives. The natural electron confinement by solid neon mitigates the high-density-wiring challenge, simplifies the multi-qubit control, and establishes a unique path to scale up the eNe qubit platform.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Coherent manipulation of interacting electron qubits on solid neon

  Research Square · 2025-11-19

  preprintOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Non-Gaussian Noise Magnetometry Using Local Spin Qubits

  ArXiv.org · 2025-05-06

  preprintOpen access

  Atomic scale qubits, as may be realized in nitrogen vacancy (NV) centers in diamond, offer the opportunity to study magnetic field noise with nanometer scale spatial resolution. Using these spin qubits, one can learn a great deal about the magnetic-field noise correlations, and correspondingly the collective-mode spectra, in quantum materials and devices. However, to date these tools have been essentially restricted to studying Gaussian noise processes -- equivalent to linear-response. In this work we will show how to extend these techniques beyond the Gaussian regime and show how to unambiguously measure higher-order magnetic noise cumulants in a local, spatially resolved way. We unveil two protocols for doing this; the first uses a single spin-qubit and different dynamical decoupling sequences to extract non-Markovian and non-Gaussian spin-echo noise. The second protocol uses two-qubit coincidence measurements to study spatially non-local cumulants in the magnetic noise. We then demonstrate the utility of these protocols by considering a model of a bath of non-interacting two-level systems, as well as a model involving spatially correlated magnetic fluctuations near a second-order Ising phase transition. In both cases, we highlight how this technique can be used to measure in a real many-body system how fluctuation dynamics converge towards the central limit theorem as a function of effective bath size. We then conclude by discussing some promising applications and extensions of this method.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Strong interactions and isospin symmetry breaking in a supermoiré lattice

  Science · 2025-07-03 · 6 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  In multilayer moiré heterostructures, the interference of multiple twist angles ubiquitously leads to tunable ultralong-wavelength patterns known as supermoiré lattices. However, their impact on the system's many-body electronic phase diagram remains largely unexplored. We present local compressibility measurements revealing numerous incompressible states resulting from supermoiré lattice-scale isospin symmetry breaking driven by strong interactions. By using the supermoiré lattice occupancy as a probe of isospin symmetry, we observed an unexpected doubling of the miniband filling near [Formula: see text], possibly indicating a hidden phase transition or normal-state pairing proximal to the superconducting phase. Our work establishes supermoiré lattices as a tunable parameter for designing quantum phases and as an effective tool for unraveling correlated phenomena in moiré materials.

  PublisherDOI

• Microwave-regime demonstration of plasmonic non-reciprocity in a flowing two-dimensional electron gas

  Applied Physics Letters · 2025-07-28 · 1 citations

  article

  The speed of a plasmonic wave in the presence of electron drift in a conductor depends on the wave's propagation direction, with the wave traveling along the drift (“forward wave”) faster than the wave traveling against the drift (“backward wave”). Phenomena related to this plasmonic non-reciprocity—which is relatively more pronounced in two-dimensional conductors than in bulk conductors and could lead to solid-state device applications—have been studied in THz and optical spectral regimes. Here, we demonstrate the plasmonic non-reciprocity at microwave frequencies (10–50 GHz). Concretely, we conduct, at 4 K, a microwave network analysis on a gated GaAs two-dimensional electron gas with electron drift (i.e., DC), directly measuring the forward and backward wave speeds via their propagation phase delays. We resolve, for example, forward and backward wave speeds of 4.26×10−3±8.97×10−6 (normalized to the speed of light). Sufficient consistency between the electron drift speed obtained from the microwave measurement and that alternatively estimated by a DC transport theory further confirms the non-reciprocity. We conclude this paper with a discussion on how to enhance the non-reciprocity for real-world applications, where degeneracy pressure would play an important role.

  PublisherDOI

• Edge State Selective Measurement of Quantum Hall Dispersions

  ArXiv.org · 2025-07-10

  preprintOpen access

  Edge states reflect the key physical properties yet are difficult to probe individually, particularly when several states are present at an edge. We present momentum resolved tunneling spectroscopy between a quantum well and a quantum wire to extract the dispersions of the quantum Hall edge states. Momentum and energy selective tunneling allows to separately address the different states even if they are spatially overlapping. This delivers the edge state velocities over broad ranges of magnetic field and density, in excellent agreement with a hard-wall model. This technique provides a basis for future edge state selective spectroscopy on quantum materials.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• CMP: Charge Fractionalization and Spin Charge Separation in One Dimensional Conductors

  NSF · $480k · 2007–2012

• PIF: Few Electron Logical Qubits and Cross Chip Shuttling of Quantum Information

  NSF · $150k · 2007–2010

• Spin, Heat and Charge Transport in Quantum Hall Edge Modes

  NSF · $520k · 2012–2016

• Induced Topological Superconductivity in Two Dimensional Systems

  NSF · $680k · 2017–2022

Frequent coauthors

• Ronald L. Walsworth

  University of Maryland, College Park

  89 shared

• Bertrand I. Halperin

  62 shared

• Mikhail D. Lukin

  Harvard University

  56 shared

• Takashi Taniguchi

  50 shared

• Kenji Watanabe

  National Institute for Materials Science

  48 shared

• V. Umansky

  Weizmann Institute of Science

  47 shared

• Jens Martin

  Leibniz Institute for Crystal Growth

  47 shared

• L. N. Pfeiffer

  45 shared