Currently, the most efficient way to create photon pairs requires sending lightwaves through a crystal large enough to see without a microscope. In a paper published today in Nature Photonics, a team led by Columbia Engineering researchers and collaborators, describe a new method for creating these photon pairs that achieves higher performance on a much smaller device using less energy. P. James Schuck, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia Engineering, helped lead the research team.

In a recent study published in Science Advances, a team of researchers led by Shengxi Huang, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering and materials science and nanoengineering at Rice, describes how one such type of quasiparticle - polarons - behaves in tellurene, a nanomaterial first synthesized in 2017 that is made up of tiny chains of tellurium atoms and has properties useful in sensing, electronic, optical and energy devices.

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, have have integrated two-dimensional (2D) semiconductor colloidal quantum wells (CQWs) with dielectric metasurface resonators (MSRs) to achieve unprecedented emission line narrowing and long- range photon transport at room temperature for on-chip photonic quantum information processing.

A research team led by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) has achieved a groundbreaking quantum simulation of the non-Hermitian skin effect in two dimensions using ultracold fermions, marking a significant advance in quantum physics research.

Since their establishment in 2020, the five U.S. Department of Energy National Quantum Information Science Research Centers. or NQISRCs, have been expanding the frontier of what’s possible in quantum computing, communication, sensing and materials in ways that will advance basic science for energy, security, communication and logistics. The centers have strengthened the national quantum information science. or QIS, ecosystem, achieving scientific and technological breakthroughs as well as training the next-generation quantum workforce.

Researchers from Singapore and China have used a superconducting quantum processor to study the phenomenon of quantum transport in unprecedented detail.

What if the waste heat generated by cars, factories, and even your laptop could be used to realize the next generation of energy-efficient quantum computers? Researchers at Illinois State University, in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL), have discovered an effect that may make that possible.

Retelit, Italy's leading B2B telecommunications company, together with Telebit, a specialized system integrator in telecommunications, digital solutions, and e-mobility, and ThinkQuantum, a University of Padua spin-off offering cybersecurity solutions and quantum communication systems, has successfully completed a trial for the application of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) as a method for encrypting data transmitted over fiber optic cables.

A team led by the University of Michigan aims to bring the extraordinary accuracy of quantum laboratory measurements to real-world devices. The team, whose project is called Quantum Photonic Integration and Deployment, or QuPID, aims to build the first chips that harness the incredible precision of light for real-world measurements in the field with quantum semiconductors. Working with leading industrial partners, the researchers will develop quantum systems that can perform the high-accuracy measurements.

Quantum computers may have garnered all the headlines but if it all sounds impossibly theoretical, there are many other practical applications of quantum technologies that have the potential to change our world. And QuEST is well placed to ride this wave(-particle) of innovation. “It’s becoming very important to make sure that quantum technologies are delivered to the market,” says Kim. Haynes adds: “Most engineers may not consider themselves to be experts in quantum, but it turns out they have lots of relevant expertise. Imperial, with its strength in science and engineering, is well placed to bring those things together.”