Where quantum breakthroughs begin: Inside Columbia University’s culture of collaboration

At Columbia University, quantum breakthroughs emerge from a culture of shared labs, ideas, and materials. What began as informal collaboration has become a scalable model for cross-disciplinary science that powers advances in programmable quantum systems.

In the push to develop novel quantum materials, Columbia University has become a hub for interdisciplinary collaboration, where the seeds of scientific breakthroughs are often planted in the spaces between departments. Hallway conversations, shared lab spaces, and overlapping research questions create fertile ground for fruitful new ideas. 

Columbia University Campus (Credit: Columbia University)

For physicist Abhay Pasupathy, repeated exposure to these cross-disciplinary exchanges often sparks a desire to join in: “Maybe Dmitri [Basov, chair of the Department of Physics] and Jim [James Schuck, associate professor of mechanical engineering] are talking about some project I’m not involved in, and I hear about it a dozen times—and then I wish I could do something here too.” 

Over the last three decades, Columbia has developed an ecosystem that fosters collaboration across physics, chemistry, and engineering. What began as informal partnerships has evolved into a deliberate model for interdisciplinary science that is now producing advances in quantum materials.

How Columbia built a quantum research collaboration machine

The roots of this model trace back to the 1990s, when a wave of scientists from Bell Laboratories brought with them a culture of cross-disciplinary experimentation.

Among them were physicists Horst Störmer and Aron Pinczuk, who joined Columbia in 1998, the same year Störmer was awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering the fractional quantum Hall effect. They were appointed jointly between Physics and Engineering, signalling an institutional commitment to bridge departmental divides.

Soon after, Störmer connected with chemists Louis Brus and Colin Nuckolls to explore new questions in nanoscience. At the time, chemistry was scaling up, building bigger molecules, and physics was scaling down. Andrew Millis, professor of physics and co-director of the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Quantum Physics recalls: “Horst and Nuckolls understood that, and formed a collaboration.”

That meeting point gave rise to something more enduring: research teams that coalesced around materials rather than disciplines, and collaborations that emphasized shared instrumentation, vocabulary, and goals. By 1998, Columbia had secured a Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) from the National Science Foundation—formalizing what had already become an informal network of joint work.

Today, that collaborative ethos is supported by programs like the Department of Energy–funded Programmable Quantum Materials initiative, the Columbia Quantum Initiative, and a joint master's program in Quantum Science & Technology. Labs are often shared between departments; students and postdocs move fluidly across fields.

“When I first arrived at Columbia”, says Dmitri Basov, “it was absolutely amazing how these administrative boundaries didn't exist, how students and postdocs [from different departments] shared labs and equipment. This culture of seamless flow of ideas, materials, methods, people, and dollars across the university’s administrative boundaries continues. That’s what makes this collaborative work so exciting.”

Breakthroughs born from Columbia’s boundary-crossing model 

The interdisciplinary structure is not just a backdrop for science. It influences the scientific questions researchers pursue. New materials often originate in chemist Xavier Roy’s lab and then move through collaborative experimental and theoretical analysis.

Two-dimensional projection of the atomic structure of graphullerene together with a high electron density iso-surface. (Credit: Argaman & Makov, Structure and properties of graphullerene: a semiconducting two-dimensional C60 crystal)

Consider graphullerene, a new two-dimensional form of carbon built from linked fullerenes. This breakthrough led by Roy, Colin Nuckolls, and Michael Steigerwald with postdoc and first author Elena Meirzadeh, paves the way for designing more complex structures with customizable properties.

Another example is the discovery of superconductivity in WSe₂, a material formed by two layers rotated 5 degrees relative to each other. This had not been clearly demonstrated in this type of material before and opens the door for superconductive materials beyond graphene. The development was led by Cory Dean and lead author Yinjie Guo (both from the Department of Physics) and includes researchers across Engineering, Electronic and Optical Materials.

The collaborative model has also yielded a new method for generating entangled photon pairs that influence each other over any distance.Led by Schuck and Chiara Trovatello, and involving researchers in Chemistry, Physics, and Engineering, the team used a 2D material (3R-MoS₂) to create a very thin device just 3.4 micrometers thick, that generates photon pairs at telecom wavelength.

These advances in 2D materials are part of the effort to develop programmable superconducting materials that could serve as a foundation for quantum computing, telecommunications, lasers, and sensing. Their atomic-scale thickness and tunable properties make them candidates for compact, energy-efficient quantum devices. But realizing their full potential requires a deeper understanding of how to control their quantum behavior. 

“From an experimentalist’s point of view,” says Schuck, “there are really few things that are more exciting than seeing Xavier in the hall and having him tell you that he has a new material. Because you know that amazing science is about to unfold. Probably the only thing that rivals that is showing data to our colleagues in theory and having them explain it.”

Why Columbia’s research culture drives scalable discoveries 

Geography plays a crucial role in Columbia's success. “Columbia is in the middle of the city”, notes Millis. “Space is very expensive, and we’re all very cramped in terms of lab space. So I think part of it is also making a virtue of necessity.” Buildings are literally connected: Chemistry and Physics share a corridor; Engineering is one building away. This closeness encourages informal exchanges and shared use of facilities.

Students initially face challenges adapting to interdisciplinary language and methods, but barriers diminish over time. “When students arrive, there is a question of just vocabulary or language,” Roy says, “Chemistry students are usually scared of physicists, or at least of the physics language. It takes them a few months, sometimes a year, to really get in the groove.” 

According to Schuck, this culture developed out of necessity to address complex scientific problems requiring multiple perspectives. “At the origins of this collaboration,” he says, “is this realization that people had to be able to cross boundaries to tackle the bigger problems. Now we’re 30 years into it, and we are seeing the effects.”

Research at Columbia continues to push boundaries in quantum computing, telecommunications, and advanced materials, which demand programmable and reconfigurable materials. “[These projects] often start from a brand new material synthesized in Xavier’s group, and then it’s integrated in a structure with reconfigurable properties,” says Basov. “After that, we apply tons of scanning probe techniques to look at things at very local scales. Then we talk with our theory friends like Andrew [Millis] about new notions and new discoveries that happen in these materials,” he says.

For Roy, the collaborative system means that novel materials find opportunities for exploration beyond what a single lab could manage. “When we make something crazy, we don’t know what it’s going to be good for. In most chemistry labs, you make something and you’re kind of on your own,” says Roy. “But here at Columbia, whatever I come up with, there’s always someone willing to take a dive.”

This willingness to "take a dive" into unknown territory may be Columbia's greatest asset. In quantum science, breakthroughs don't emerge in isolation. They grow from the cross-pollination of ideas, the shared soil of labs, and the readiness to explore whatever emerges. At Columbia, that garden is always in bloom.

Lucila Pinto is a freelance science and tech journalist. Her work has appeared in Science, Rest of World, and La Nación, among other publications. She is a Pulitzer Center reporting fellow and a graduate of Columbia University’s science journalism program. Follow her on X @luchipaint and on LinkedIn.