With a grant of $7.5 million (£4.7 million), the scientists are to attempt to bring together the characteristics of semiconductors that allow them to conduct electricity perfectly.
Once this is done, the researchers hope to have created superconducting semiconductors for use in quantum supercomputers.
Among the applications to be developed in the five-year product are quantum data transfer between different media, quantum simulation and new forms of quantum memory.
The team call quantum supercomputers "powerful devices that could solve problems too complex for all of the world's computers working together over the age of the universe to crack".
Funding was awarded to the university under the Department of Defense Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative, which aims to promote cross-disciplinary studies in science and engineering.
