Applied physicists in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have discovered a new way to generate ultra-precise, evenly spaced “combs” of laser light on a photonic chip, a breakthrough that could miniaturize optical platforms like spectroscopic sensors or communication systems.
The research was led by Marko Lončar, the Tiantsai Lin Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics at SEAS, and published in Science Advances. The paper’s first author is Yunxiang Song, a graduate student in Quantum Science and Engineering.
In the everyday world, governed by classical physics, the concept of equilibrium reigns. If you put a drop of ink into water, it will eventually evenly mix. If you put a glass of ice water on the kitchen table, it will eventually melt and become room temperature. That concept rooted in energy transport is known as thermalization, and it is easy to comprehend because we see it happen every day. But this is not always how things behave at the smallest scales of the universe.
In the quantum realm—at the atomic and sub-atomic scales—there can be a phenomenon called localization, in which equilibrium spreading does not occur, even with nothing obviously preventing it. Researchers at Duke University have observed this intriguing behavior using a quantum simulator for the first time. Also known as statistical localization, the research could help probe questions about unusual material properties or quantum memory.
Quantum computer research is advancing at a rapid pace. Today’s devices, however, still have significant limitations: For example, the length of a quantum computation is severely limited—that is, the number of possible interactions between quantum bits before a serious error occurs in the highly sensitive system. For this reason, it is important to keep computing operations as efficient and lean as possible.
Drawing on the example of a quantum simulation, physicists Guido Burkard and Joris Kattemölle from the University of Konstanz illustrate how harnessing symmetry dramatically lowers the computational effort needed: They use recurring patterns in the quantum systems to reduce the required computational effort by a factor of a thousand or more. The method has now been published in the journal Physical Review Letters.
Researchers in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences have devised a new way to make some of the smallest, smoothest mirrors ever created for controlling single particles of light, known as photons. These mirrors could play key roles in future quantum computers, quantum networks, integrated lasers, environmental sensing equipment, and more.
A team from the labs of Marko Lončar, the Tiantsai Lin Professor of Electrical Engineering at SEAS; Mikhail Lukin, the Joshua and Beth Friedman University Professor in the Department of Physics; and Kiyoul Yang, assistant professor of electrical engineering at SEAS; have described their new method for making high-performance, curved optical mirrors in a study published in Optica.
Using two such mirrors to trap light between them, the team demonstrated state-of-the-art optical resonators that can control light at near-infrared wavelengths, which is important for manipulating single atoms in quantum computing applications.
Many physicists are searching for a triplet superconductor. Indeed, we could all do with one, although we may not know it yet—or understand why. Triplet superconductors could be the key to achieving the most energy-efficient technology in the future.
“A triplet superconductor is high on the wish list of many physicists working in the field of solid state physics,” said Professor Jacob Linder. He works at NTNU’s Department of Physics, more specifically at QuSpin—a research center where physicists grapple with some of the gnarliest questions you can imagine. “Materials that are triplet superconductors are a kind of ‘holy grail’ in quantum technology, and more specifically quantum computing,” explained Linder.
He and his colleagues are now on the trail of this triplet superconductor—much to the excitement of physicists worldwide. “We think we may have observed a triplet superconductor,” said Professor Linder.
Researchers have managed to read information stored in Majorana qubits, which are a form of topological qubit.
Researchers from Spanish National Research Council demonstrated that they can access the information stored in Majorana qubits using a new technique called quantum capacitance.
“This is a crucial advance,” explained Ramón Aguado, a CSIC researcher at the Madrid Institute of Materials Science (ICMM) and one of the study’s authors.
PRESS RELEASE — In the everyday world, governed by classical physics, the concept of equilibrium reigns. If you put a drop of ink into water, it will eventually evenly mix. If you put a glass of ice water on the kitchen table, it will eventually melt and become room temperature.
That concept rooted in energy transport is known as thermalization, and it is easy to comprehend because we see it happen every day. But this is not always how things behave at the smallest scales of the universe.
In the quantum realm—at the atomic and sub-atomic scales—there can be a phenomenon called localization, in which equilibrium spreading does not occur, even with nothing obviously preventing it. Researchers at Duke University have observed this intriguing behavior using a quantum simulator for the first time. Also known as statistical localization, the research could help probe questions about unusual material properties or quantum memory.
Will humans one day merge with artificial intelligence? Futurist Ray Kurzweil predicts a coming “singularity” where humans upload their minds into digital systems, expanding intelligence and potentially achieving immortality. But critics argue that consciousness, creativity, love, and spiritual awareness cannot be reduced to algorithms. This discussion explores brain-computer interfaces, quantum mechanics and the mind, the Ship of Theseus identity paradox, and whether a digital copy of your brain would actually be you. Is AI-driven immortality possible—or does it misunderstand what it means to be human?
Every year the Center sponsors COSM an exclusive national summit on the converging technologies remaking the world as we know it. Visit COSM.TECH (https://cosm.tech/) for information on COSM 2025, November 19–21 at the beautiful Hilton Scottsdale Resort and Spas in Scottsdale, AZ. For more information. Registration will launch mid-July.
The mission of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence at Discovery Institute is to explore the benefits as well as the challenges raised by artificial intelligence (AI) in light of the enduring truth of human exceptionalism. People know at a fundamental level that they are not machines. But faulty thinking can cause people to assent to views that in their heart of hearts they know to be untrue. The Bradley Center seeks to help individuals—and our society at large—to realize that we are not machines while at the same time helping to put machines (especially computers and AI) in proper perspective.
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Within the STRUCTURES Cluster of Excellence, two research teams at the Interdisciplinary Center for Scientific Computing (IWR) have refined a computing process, long held to be unreliable, such that it delivers precise results and reliably establishes a physically meaningful solution. The findings are published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Why molecular electron densities matter
How electrons are distributed in a molecule determines its chemical properties—from its stability and reactivity to its biological effect. Reliably calculating this electron distribution and the resulting energy is one of the central functions of quantum chemistry. These calculations form the basis of many applications in which molecules must be specifically understood and designed, such as for new drugs, better batteries, materials for energy conversion, or more efficient catalysts.
PsiQuantum are world leaders in the race to utility-scale quantum computing, but they have been shrouded in mystery for over a decade…until now.
Thanks to some good fortune and incredible generosity from the PsiQuantum team I was able to get behind the scenes and see what makes their ground-breaking quantum computer ‘click’
0:00 Silicon Valley’s Most Secretive Quantum Computer. 1:38 A Quantum Computer that runs on Light. 6:03 How to Create a Single Photon. 9:00 How to Build a Quantum Clock. 10:48 Ad Read. 11:54 Detecting Single Photons. 15:00 Creating the Perfect Material. 18:19 How to do math with light. 21:45 How to Build a Scalable Quantum Computer. 24:27 Converting Space to Time. 27:25 The First Photonic Quantum Computer Demonstrator.
