Nanotechnology Now Our NanoNews Digest Sponsors Home > Press > Unconventional superconductor acts the part of a promising quantum computing platform: If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck. Crystals of a promising topological superconductor grown by researchers at the University of Maryland's Quantum Materials Center. CREDIT (Credit: Sheng Ran/NIST). Abstract: Scientists on the hunt for an unconventional kind of superconductor have produced the most compelling evidence to date that they've found one. In a pair of papers, researchers at the University of Maryland's (UMD) Quantum Materials Center (QMC) and colleagues have shown that uranium ditelluride (or UTe2 for short) displays many of the hallmarks of a topological superconductor--a material that may unlock new ways to build quantum computers and other futuristic devices.