From NREL- The National Renewable Energy Laboratory: “NRL Announces the Washington Metropolitan Quantum Network Research Consortium (DC-QNet)”

From NREL- The National Renewable Energy Laboratory

June 27, 2022
Paul Cage

Credit: K. Dill/NIST.

The exploitation of quantum-entangled particles (including photons) to transmit information in the form of qubits, the basic unit of information in quantum technologies, is at the heart of quantum networks.

To advance quantum network capabilities and leadership, the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) announced work with five other U.S. Government agencies on May 18 to establish the Washington Metropolitan Quantum Network Research Consortium (DC-QNet) to create, demonstrate and operate a quantum network as a regional testbed.

Quantum networks, an emerging research frontier, will one day offer the ability to distribute and share quantum information securely among quantum computers, clusters of quantum sensors and related devices at regional and national distances. They can also be used to distribute ultra-precise time signals, and offer the potential to enable the creation of new applications not yet imagined.

“These agencies with world-class research capabilities will work to advance quantum network capabilities and leadership,” Gerald Borsuk, Ph.D., DC-QNet Executive Director said. “Quantum networks will be essential to modern secure communications and to computing enhancements in the 21st Century.”

The six agencies are:

U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Army Research Laboratory
U.S. Naval Research Laboratory
U.S. Naval Observatory
National Institute of Standards and Technology
National Security Agency/Central Security Services Directorate of Research
National Aeronautics and Space Administration

There are currently two out-of-region affiliates to this Consortium:

U.S. Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific
U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory

The exploitation of quantum-entangled particles (including photons) to transmit information in the form of qubits, the basic unit of information in quantum technologies, is at the heart of quantum networks.

Quantum entanglement is a unique quantum mechanical property of atomic and subatomic particles, where classical physics fails to describe observed phenomena accurately. It describes a relationship between particles whereby the quantum state of each particle cannot be described independently of the state of the others, even though they are physically separated from each other.

DC-QNet researchers are also studying other quantum behaviors and capabilities such as transduction, or the process of converting qubits from one form into another. To fully harness these capabilities for quantum networking will require state-of-the-art measurement science, or metrology.

The DC-QNet testbed will perform entanglement distribution of qubits at multi-kilometer distances over a well-characterized and controlled quantum network. Efforts include:

Development of high fidelity quantum memory nodes, single-photon devices, network metrology, qubit platforms, transduction and frequency conversion, synchronization, and continued research and development into enabling science and technology
Developing the network infrastructure to connect the six metropolitan agencies
Research and development into the transfer of quantum entanglement between nodes
Emulation, modeling and simulation of the network
Research and development into the classical management and control, routing, monitoring and metrology and associated software of the quantum network.

The DC-QNet governance comprises an Executive Director and an Executive Steering Committee, along with principal investigators from among the agencies taking the lead on the various technical goals. Among the programmatic goals of the consortium are:

A trusted Quantum Network Testbed for the U.S. Government and the U.S. Department of Defense
Contributions to network synchronization by official U.S. government timekeepers
A focus on the metrology required to operate a quantum network

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The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), located in Golden, Colorado, specializes in renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is a government-owned, contractor-operated facility, and is funded through the United States Department of Energy. This arrangement allows a private entity to operate the lab on behalf of the federal government. NREL receives funding from Congress to be applied toward research and development projects. NREL also performs research on photovoltaics (PV) under the National Center for Photovoltaics. NREL has a number of PV research capabilities including research and development, testing, and deployment. NREL’s campus houses several facilities dedicated to PV research.

NREL’s areas of research and development are renewable electricity, energy productivity, energy storage, systems integration, and sustainable transportation.

From The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory-an enduring source of strength for the US contribution to scientific research worldwide and The DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory: “Quantum network between two national labs achieves record synch”

FNAL Art Image by Angela Gonzales

From The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory-an enduring source of strength for the US contribution to scientific research worldwide.

and

The DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory

June 27, 2022
Tracy Marc
Fermilab
media@fnal.gov
224-290-7803

Chris Kramer
Argonne National Laboratory
media@anl.gov
630-252-5580

The world awaits quantum technology. Quantum computing is expected to solve complex problems that current, or classical, computing cannot. And quantum networking is essential for realizing the full potential of quantum computing, enabling breakthroughs in our understanding of nature, as well as applications that improve everyday life.

But making it a reality requires the development of precise quantum computers and reliable quantum networks that leverage current computer technologies and existing infrastructure.

Recently, as a sort of proof of potential and a first step toward functional quantum networks, a team of researchers with the Illinois‐Express Quantum Network (IEQNET) successfully deployed a long-distance quantum network between two U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) laboratories using local fiber optics.

The experiment marked the first time that quantum-encoded photons — the particle through which quantum information is delivered — and classical signals were simultaneously delivered across a metropolitan-scale distance with an unprecedented level of synchronization.

The IEQNET collaboration includes the DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator and Argonne National laboratories; Northwestern University and Caltech. Their success is derived, in part, from the fact that its members encompass the breadth of computing architectures, from classical and quantum to hybrid.

“To have two national labs that are 50 kilometers apart, working on quantum networks with this shared range of technical capability and expertise, is not a trivial thing,” said Panagiotis Spentzouris, head of the Quantum Science Program at Fermilab and lead researcher on the project. “You need a diverse team to attack this very difficult and complex problem.”

To test the synchronicity of two clocks — one at Argonne and one at Fermilab — scientists transmitted a traditional clock signal (blue) and a quantum signal (orange) simultaneously between the two clocks. The signals were sent over the Illinois Express Quantum Network. Researchers found that the two clocks remained synchronized within a time window smaller than 5 picoseconds, or 5 trillionths of a second. Image: Lee Turman, Argonne.

And for that team, synchronization proved the beast to tame. Together, they showed that it is possible for quantum and classical signals to coexist across the same network fiber and achieve synchronization, both in metropolitan-scale distances and real-world conditions.

Classical computing networks, the researchers point out, are complex enough. Introducing the challenge that is quantum networking into the mix changes the game considerably.

When classical computers need to execute synchronized operations and functions, like those required for security and computation acceleration, they rely on something called the Network Time Protocol. This protocol distributes a clock signal over the same network that carries information, with a precision that is a million times faster than a blink of an eye.

With quantum computing, the precision required is even greater. Imagine that the classical network time protocol is an Olympic runner; the clock for quantum computing is The Flash, the superfast superhero from comic books and films.

To assure that they get pairs of photons that are entangled — the ability to influence one another from a distance — the researchers must generate the quantum-encoded photons in great numbers.

Knowing which pairs are entangled is where the synchronicity comes in. The team used similar timing signals to synchronize the clocks at each destination, or node, across the Fermilab-Argonne network.

Precision electronics are used to adjust this timing signal based on known factors, like distance and speed — in this case, that photons always travel at the speed of light — as well as for interference generated by the environment, such as temperature changes or vibrations, in the fiber optics.

Because they had only two fiber strands between the two labs, the researchers had to send the clock on the same fiber that carried the entangled photons. The way to separate the clock from the quantum signal is to use different wavelengths, but that comes with its own challenge.

“Choosing appropriate wavelengths for the quantum and classical synchronization signals is very important for minimizing interference that will affect the quantum information,” said Rajkumar Kettimuthu, an Argonne computer scientist and project team member. “One analogy could be that the fiber is a road, and wavelengths are lanes. The photon is a cyclist, and the clock is a truck. If we are not careful, the truck can cross into the bike lane. So, we performed a large number of experiments to make sure the truck stayed in its lane.”

Ultimately, the two were properly assigned and controlled, and the timing signal and photons were distributed from sources at Fermilab. As the photons arrived at each location, measurements were performed and recorded using Argonne’s superconducting nanowire single photon detectors.

“We showed record levels of synchronization using readily available technology that relies on radio frequency signals encoded onto light,” said Raju Valivarthi, a Caltech researcher and IEQNET team member. “We built and tested the system at Caltech, and the IEQNET experiments demonstrate its readiness and capabilities in a real-world fiber optic network connecting two major national labs.”

The network was synchronized so accurately that it recorded only a five-picosecond time difference in the clocks at each location; one picosecond is one trillionth of a second.

Such precision will allow scientists to accurately identify and manipulate entangled photon pairs for supporting quantum network operations over metropolitan distances in real-world conditions. Building on this accomplishment, the IEQNET team is getting ready to perform experiments to demonstrate entanglement swapping. This process enables entanglement between photons from different entangled pairs, thus creating longer quantum communication channels.

“This is the first demonstration in real conditions to use real optical fiber to achieve this type of superior synchronization accuracy and the ability to coexist with quantum information,” Spentzouris said. “This record performance is an essential step on the path to building practical multinode quantum networks.”

This project was funded through the DOE Office of Science, Advanced Scientific Computing Research program.

Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory is America’s premier national laboratory for particle physics research. A U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science laboratory, Fermilab is located near Chicago, Illinois, and operated under contract by the Fermi Research Alliance LLC. Visit Fermilab’s website at https://www.fnal.gov and follow us on Twitter @Fermilab.

The DOE Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, please visit science.energy.gov.

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The DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology. The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne conducts leading-edge basic and applied scientific research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne researchers work closely with researchers from hundreds of companies, universities, and federal, state and municipal agencies to help them solve their is a science and engineering research national laboratory operated by UChicago Argonne LLC for the United States Department of Energy. The facility is located in Lemont, Illinois, outside of Chicago, and is the largest national laboratory by size and scope in the Midwest.

Argonne had its beginnings in the Metallurgical Laboratory of the University of Chicago, formed in part to carry out Enrico Fermi’s work on nuclear reactors for the Manhattan Project during World War II. After the war, it was designated as the first national laboratory in the United States on July 1, 1946. In the post-war era the lab focused primarily on non-weapon related nuclear physics, designing and building the first power-producing nuclear reactors, helping design the reactors used by the United States’ nuclear navy, and a wide variety of similar projects. In 1994, the lab’s nuclear mission ended, and today it maintains a broad portfolio in basic science research, energy storage and renewable energy, environmental sustainability, supercomputing, and national security.

UChicago Argonne, LLC, the operator of the laboratory, “brings together the expertise of the University of Chicago (the sole member of the LLC) with Jacobs Engineering Group Inc.” Argonne is a part of the expanding Illinois Technology and Research Corridor. Argonne formerly ran a smaller facility called Argonne National Laboratory-West (or simply Argonne-West) in Idaho next to the Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory. In 2005, the two Idaho-based laboratories merged to become the DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory.

What would become Argonne began in 1942 as the Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, which had become part of the Manhattan Project. The Met Lab built Chicago Pile-1, the world’s first nuclear reactor, under the stands of the University of Chicago sports stadium. Considered unsafe, in 1943, CP-1 was reconstructed as CP-2, in what is today known as Red Gate Woods but was then the Argonne Forest of the Cook County Forest Preserve District near Palos Hills. The lab was named after the surrounding forest, which in turn was named after the Forest of Argonne in France where U.S. troops fought in World War I. Fermi’s pile was originally going to be constructed in the Argonne forest, and construction plans were set in motion, but a labor dispute brought the project to a halt. Since speed was paramount, the project was moved to the squash court under Stagg Field, the football stadium on the campus of the University of Chicago. Fermi told them that he was sure of his calculations, which said that it would not lead to a runaway reaction, which would have contaminated the city.

Other activities were added to Argonne over the next five years. On July 1, 1946, the “Metallurgical Laboratory” was formally re-chartered as Argonne National Laboratory for “cooperative research in nucleonics.” At the request of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, it began developing nuclear reactors for the nation’s peaceful nuclear energy program. In the late 1940s and early 1950s, the laboratory moved to a larger location in unincorporated DuPage County, Illinois and established a remote location in Idaho, called “Argonne-West,” to conduct further nuclear research.

In quick succession, the laboratory designed and built Chicago Pile 3 (1944), the world’s first heavy-water moderated reactor, and the Experimental Breeder Reactor I (Chicago Pile 4), built-in Idaho, which lit a string of four light bulbs with the world’s first nuclear-generated electricity in 1951. A complete list of the reactors designed and, in most cases, built and operated by Argonne can be viewed in the, Reactors Designed by Argonne page. The knowledge gained from the Argonne experiments conducted with these reactors 1) formed the foundation for the designs of most of the commercial reactors currently used throughout the world for electric power generation and 2) inform the current evolving designs of liquid-metal reactors for future commercial power stations.

Conducting classified research, the laboratory was heavily secured; all employees and visitors needed badges to pass a checkpoint, many of the buildings were classified, and the laboratory itself was fenced and guarded. Such alluring secrecy drew visitors both authorized—including King Leopold III of Belgium and Queen Frederica of Greece—and unauthorized. Shortly past 1 a.m. on February 6, 1951, Argonne guards discovered reporter Paul Harvey near the 10-foot (3.0 m) perimeter fence, his coat tangled in the barbed wire. Searching his car, guards found a previously prepared four-page broadcast detailing the saga of his unauthorized entrance into a classified “hot zone”. He was brought before a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy to obtain information on national security and transmit it to the public, but was not indicted.

Not all nuclear technology went into developing reactors, however. While designing a scanner for reactor fuel elements in 1957, Argonne physicist William Nelson Beck put his own arm inside the scanner and obtained one of the first ultrasound images of the human body. Remote manipulators designed to handle radioactive materials laid the groundwork for more complex machines used to clean up contaminated areas, sealed laboratories or caves. In 1964, the “Janus” reactor opened to study the effects of neutron radiation on biological life, providing research for guidelines on safe exposure levels for workers at power plants, laboratories and hospitals. Scientists at Argonne pioneered a technique to analyze the moon’s surface using alpha radiation, which launched aboard the Surveyor 5 in 1967 and later analyzed lunar samples from the Apollo 11 mission.

In addition to nuclear work, the laboratory maintained a strong presence in the basic research of physics and chemistry. In 1955, Argonne chemists co-discovered the elements einsteinium and fermium, elements 99 and 100 in the periodic table. In 1962, laboratory chemists produced the first compound of the inert noble gas xenon, opening up a new field of chemical bonding research. In 1963, they discovered the hydrated electron.

High-energy physics made a leap forward when Argonne was chosen as the site of the 12.5 GeV Zero Gradient Synchrotron, a proton accelerator that opened in 1963. A bubble chamber allowed scientists to track the motions of subatomic particles as they zipped through the chamber; in 1970, they observed the neutrino in a hydrogen bubble chamber for the first time.

Meanwhile, the laboratory was also helping to design the reactor for the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine, the U.S.S. Nautilus, which steamed for more than 513,550 nautical miles (951,090 km). The next nuclear reactor model was Experimental Boiling Water Reactor, the forerunner of many modern nuclear plants, and Experimental Breeder Reactor II (EBR-II), which was sodium-cooled, and included a fuel recycling facility. EBR-II was later modified to test other reactor designs, including a fast-neutron reactor and, in 1982, the Integral Fast Reactor concept—a revolutionary design that reprocessed its own fuel, reduced its atomic waste and withstood safety tests of the same failures that triggered the Chernobyl and Three Mile Island disasters. In 1994, however, the U.S. Congress terminated funding for the bulk of Argonne’s nuclear programs.

Argonne moved to specialize in other areas, while capitalizing on its experience in physics, chemical sciences and metallurgy. In 1987, the laboratory was the first to successfully demonstrate a pioneering technique called plasma wakefield acceleration, which accelerates particles in much shorter distances than conventional accelerators. It also cultivated a strong battery research program.

Following a major push by then-director Alan Schriesheim, the laboratory was chosen as the site of the Advanced Photon Source, a major X-ray facility which was completed in 1995 and produced the brightest X-rays in the world at the time of its construction.

On 19 March 2019, it was reported in the Chicago Tribune that the laboratory was constructing the world’s most powerful supercomputer. Costing $500 million it will have the processing power of 1 quintillion flops. Applications will include the analysis of stars and improvements in the power grid.

With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. For more visit http://www.anl.gov.

About the Advanced Photon Source

The U. S. Department of Energy Office of Science’s Advanced Photon Source (APS) at Argonne National Laboratory is one of the world’s most productive X-ray light source facilities. The APS provides high-brightness X-ray beams to a diverse community of researchers in materials science, chemistry, condensed matter physics, the life and environmental sciences, and applied research. These X-rays are ideally suited for explorations of materials and biological structures; elemental distribution; chemical, magnetic, electronic states; and a wide range of technologically important engineering systems from batteries to fuel injector sprays, all of which are the foundations of our nation’s economic, technological, and physical well-being. Each year, more than 5,000 researchers use the APS to produce over 2,000 publications detailing impactful discoveries, and solve more vital biological protein structures than users of any other X-ray light source research facility. APS scientists and engineers innovate technology that is at the heart of advancing accelerator and light-source operations. This includes the insertion devices that produce extreme-brightness X-rays prized by researchers, lenses that focus the X-rays down to a few nanometers, instrumentation that maximizes the way the X-rays interact with samples being studied, and software that gathers and manages the massive quantity of data resulting from discovery research at the APS.

With employees from more than 60 nations, Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science. For more visit http://www.anl.gov.

Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science

The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Since 2007, Fermilab has been operated by the Fermi Research Alliance, a joint venture of the University of Chicago, and the Universities Research Association. Fermilab is a part of the Illinois Technology and Research Corridor.

Fermilab’s Tevatron was a landmark particle accelerator; until the startup in 2008 of the The European Southern Observatory [La Observatorio Europeo Austral][Observatoire européen austral][Europäische Südsternwarte](EU)(CL)[CERN] Large Hadron Collider(CH) near Geneva, Switzerland, it was the most powerful particle accelerator in the world, accelerating antiprotons to energies of 500 GeV, and producing proton-proton collisions with energies of up to 1.6 TeV, the first accelerator to reach one “tera-electron-volt” energy. At 3.9 miles (6.3 km), it was the world’s fourth-largest particle accelerator in circumference. One of its most important achievements was the 1995 discovery of the top quark, announced by research teams using the Tevatron’s CDF and DØ detectors. It was shut down in 2011.

FNAL/Tevatron The CDF detector

FNAL/Tevatron The DZero Detector

In addition to high-energy collider physics, Fermilab hosts a series of fixed-target and neutrino experiments, such as The MicroBooNE (Micro Booster Neutrino Experiment),

The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory MicrobooNE experiment.

NOνA (NuMI Off-Axis νe Appearance)

The FNAL NOvA experiment, neutrino tracking from Illinois to Minnesota

and Seaquest

The FNAL SeaQuest experiment

.

Completed neutrino experiments include MINOS (Main Injector Neutrino Oscillation Search), MINOS+, MiniBooNE and SciBooNE (SciBar Booster Neutrino Experiment).

The MiniBooNE detector was a 40-foot (12 m) diameter sphere containing 800 tons of mineral oil lined with 1,520 phototube detectors. An estimated 1 million neutrino events were recorded each year.

SciBooNE sat in the same neutrino beam as MiniBooNE but had fine-grained tracking capabilities. The NOνA experiment uses, and the MINOS experiment used, Fermilab’s NuMI (Neutrinos at the Main Injector) beam, which is an intense beam of neutrinos that travels 455 miles (732 km) through the Earth to the Soudan Mine in Minnesota and the Ash River, Minnesota, site of the NOνA far detector.

The ICARUS neutrino experiment was moved from CERN to Fermilab.

INFN Gran Sasso ICARUS, since moved to FNAL.

The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory ICARUS experiment.

In the public realm, Fermilab is home to a native prairie ecosystem restoration project and hosts many cultural events: public science lectures and symposia, classical and contemporary music concerts, folk dancing and arts galleries. The site is open from dawn to dusk to visitors who present valid photo identification.

Asteroid 11998 Fermilab is named in honor of the laboratory.

The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory campus.

The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory(US)/MINERvA. Photo Reidar Hahn.

The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator LaboratoryDAMIC | The Fermilab Cosmic Physics Center.

The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator LaboratoryMuon g-2 studio. As muons race around a ring at the Muon g-2 studio, their spin axes twirl, reflecting the influence of unseen particles.

The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Short-Baseline Near Detector under construction.

The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory Mu2e solenoid.

The Dark Energy Camera [DECam], built at The DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.

Weston, Illinois, was a community next to Batavia voted out of existence by its village board in 1966 to provide a site for Fermilab.

The laboratory was founded in 1969 as the National Accelerator Laboratory; it was renamed in honor of Enrico Fermi in 1974. The laboratory’s first director was Robert Rathbun Wilson, under whom the laboratory opened ahead of time and under budget. Many of the sculptures on the site are of his creation. He is the namesake of the site’s high-rise laboratory building, whose unique shape has become the symbol for Fermilab and which is the center of activity on the campus.

After Wilson stepped down in 1978 to protest the lack of funding for the lab, Leon M. Lederman took on the job. It was under his guidance that the original accelerator was replaced with the Tevatron, an accelerator capable of colliding protons and antiprotons at a combined energy of 1.96 TeV. Lederman stepped down in 1989. The science education center at the site was named in his honor.

The later directors include:

John Peoples, 1989 to 1996
Michael S. Witherell, July 1999 to June 2005
Piermaria Oddone, July 2005 to July 2013
Nigel Lockyer, September 2013 to the present

Fermilab continues to participate in the work at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC); it serves as a Tier 1 site in the Worldwide LHC Computing Grid and hosts 1000 U.S. scientists who work on the CMS project.

The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organisation für Kernforschung](CH)[CERN] CMS.

From The University of New South Wales (AU) : “UNSW quantum scientists deliver world’s first integrated circuit at the atomic scale” and “Scientists emulate nature in quantum leap towards computers of the future”

From The University of New South Wales (AU)

23 Jun 2022
Larissa Baiocchi

The technical breakthrough, announced at an event at UNSW Sydney today, was published in the journal Nature.

Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic joined UNSW Professor Michelle Simmons and UNSW Vice-Chancellor and President Attila Brungs on a tour of the Silicon Quantum Computer labs. Prof Simmons and the SQC team announced a major breakthrough on its journey to build a commercial silicon computer.

Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic has touted the world-leading work of UNSW Sydney quantum scientists during a visit to the Kensington campus on Thursday.

Mr Husic, who was on campus for the announcement of a significant technical breakthrough by UNSW Professor Michelle Simmons and the team at Silicon Quantum Computing (SQC), said the latest development is evidence of Australia’s superiority in the space.

“I want to tell you how much what you do means to the country,” said Mr Husic, referring to the SQC team gathered at the event. “You are contributing over a long period of time to something that is a big deal not just for the country, but for the world.”

Mr Husic acknowledged the work of Prof. Simmons and the SQC researchers who announced the development of the world’s first integrated circuit manufactured at the atomic scale.

“Our quantum capabilities are clearly world-leading and building on the proud history of research excellence,” Mr Husic said. “It is a clear sign that our companies, our entrepreneurs and our researchers are some of the world’s best.”

Keeping quantum research in Australia

Mr Husic also highlighted the government’s commitment to keeping talent in Australia.

The government has announced an investment of $1 billion in the form of a Critical Technology Fund as part of the broader National Reconstruction Fund. This will help to support home-grown innovation and production in areas like engineering, data science, software development, AI, robotics, and quantum.

To ensure the continuous growth and supercharge the quantum computing industry, the government is providing $4 million for up to 20 PhDs in quantum research to support universities as they establish national research and education partnerships.

“I want the world to know what you are doing, and I want to fight every single day to stop anyone leaving this country that’s involved in quantum,” Mr Husic said. “I want the world to come here, instead of us going there.”
Mr Husic pointed to a range of statistics that show Australia punches well above its weight when it comes quantum research. Australia accounts for a third of 1 per cent of the world’s population, but it accounts for 4.2 per cent of global quantum research. Quantum technology research by Australian researchers is cited 60 per cent more than the global average. Eleven Australian universities rank above the global standard for quantum technology research.

A career high for Michelle Simmons

Prof. Simmons, founder and director of SQC, described the technical breakthrough as the biggest result of her career.

“This has never been done before and nobody else in the world can do it,” Prof Simmons said. “It is a hugely exciting result and what is even more exciting for us is having done that, we have seen that classical roadmap and that we know the commercial devices that are within the next five or six years.”

Prof Simmons and researchers from SQC used the integrated processor – known as an analogue quantum processor – to accurately model the quantum states of a small, organic polyacetylene molecule, proving a pathway to creating new materials that have never existed.

The advancement is a major step for SQC and its customers to construct quantum models for a range of new materials, from superconductors, materials for batteries, pharmaceuticals, or catalysts.

UNSW leads in quantum technology

UNSW Vice-Chancellor and President Professor Attila Brungs called the announcement history in the making.

“Today’s news puts SQC and UNSW researchers even closer to their goal and reinforces this University’s position at the forefront of quantum technology,” Prof Brungs said.

“It is the culmination of many years of hard work and is an exemplar of the power of collaboration.”

SQC is a private company formed in 2017 through a joint initiative with the Commonwealth government, UNSW Sydney, Telstra Corporation, the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, and the NSW government.
_____________________________________________________________

Scientists emulate nature in quantum leap towards computers of the future

23 Jun 2022
Lachlan Gilbert

Quantum computing hardware specialists at UNSW have built a quantum processor in silicon to simulate an organic molecule with astounding precision.

Lead researcher and former Australian of the Year, Scientia Professor Michelle Simmons. Photo: SQC.

A team of quantum computer physicists at UNSW Sydney have engineered a quantum processor at the atomic scale to simulate the behaviour of a small organic molecule, solving a challenge set some 60 years ago by theoretical physicist Richard Feynman.

The achievement, which occurred two years ahead of schedule, represents a major milestone in the race to build the world’s first quantum computer, and demonstrates the team’s ability to control the quantum states of electrons and atoms in silicon at an exquisite level not achieved before.

In a paper published today in the journal Nature, the researchers described how they were able to mimic the structure and energy states of the organic compound polyacetylene – a repeating chain of carbon and hydrogen atoms distinguished by alternating single and double bonds of carbon.

Lead researcher and former Australian of the Year, Scientia Professor Michelle Simmons, said the team at Silicon Quantum Computing, one of UNSW’s most exciting start-ups, built a quantum integrated circuit comprising a chain of 10 quantum dots to simulate the precise location of atoms in the polyacetylene chain.

An artist’s impression of inside the quantum integrated circuit modeling the carbon chain. The simulated carbon atoms are in red, while the blue depicts electrons exchanged between them. Image: SQC.

“If you go back to the 1950s, Richard Feynman said you can’t understand how nature works unless you can build matter at the same length scale,” Prof. Simmons said.

“And so that’s what we’re doing, we’re literally building it from the bottom up, where we are mimicking the polyacetylene molecule by putting atoms in silicon with the exact distances that represent the single and double carbon-carbon bonds.”

Chain reaction

The research relied on measuring the electric current through a deliberately engineered 10-quantum dot replica of the polyacetylene molecule as each new electron passed from the source outlet of the device to the drain – the other end of the circuit.

To be doubly sure, they simulated two different strands of the polymer chains.

In the first device they cut a snippet of the chain to leave double bonds at the end giving 10 peaks in the current. In the second device they cut a different snippet of the chain to leave single bonds at the end only giving rise to two peaks in the current. The current that passes through each chain was therefore dramatically different due to the different bond lengths of the atoms at the end of the chain.

Not only did the measurements match the theoretical predictions, they matched perfectly.

“What it’s showing is that you can literally mimic what actually happens in the real molecule. And that’s why it’s exciting because the signatures of the two chains are very different,” Prof. Simmons said.

“Most of the other quantum computing architectures out there haven’t got the ability to engineer atoms with sub-nanometer precision or allow the atoms to sit that close.

“And so that means that now we can start to understand more and more complicated molecules based on putting the atoms in place as if they’re mimicking the real physical system.”

Standing at the edge

According to Prof. Simmons, it was no accident that a carbon chain of 10 atoms was chosen because that sits within the size limit of what a classical computer is able to compute, with up to 1024 separate interactions of electrons in that system. Increasing it to a 20-dot chain would see the number of possible interactions rise exponentially, making it difficult for a classical computer to solve.

“We’re near the limit of what classical computers can do, so it’s like stepping off the edge into the unknown,” she says.

“And this is the thing that’s exciting, we can now make bigger devices that are beyond what a classical computer can model. So we can look at molecules that haven’t been simulated before. We’re going to be able to understand the world in a different way, addressing fundamental questions that we’ve never been able to solve before.”

One of the questions Prof. Simmons alluded to is about understanding and mimicking photosynthesis – how plants use light to create chemical energy for growth. Or understanding how to optimise the design of catalysts used for fertilisers, currently a high-energy, high-cost process.

“So there’re huge implications for fundamentally understanding how nature works,” she said.

Future quantum computers

Much has been written about quantum computers in the last three decades with the billion-dollar question always being ‘but when can we see one?’.

Prof. Simmons says that the development of quantum computers is on a comparable trajectory to how classical computers evolved – from a transistor in 1947 to an integrated circuit in 1958, and then small computing chips that went into commercial products like calculators approximately five years after that.

“And so we’re now replicating that roadmap for quantum computers,” Prof. Simmons says.

The authors of the Nature paper in the Silicon Quantum Computing laboratory.

“We started with a single atom transistor in 2012. And this latest result, realised in 2021 is the equivalent of the atom-scale quantum integrated circuit, two years ahead of time. If we map it to the evolution of classical computing, we’re predicting we should have some kind of commercial outcome from our technology five years from now.”

One of the advantages that the UNSW/SQC team’s research brings is that the technology is scalable because it manages to use fewer components in the circuit to control the qubits – the basic bits of quantum information.

“In quantum systems, you need something that creates the qubits, some kind of structure in the device that allows you to form the quantum state,” Prof. Simmons says.

“In our system, the atoms themselves create the qubits, requiring fewer elements in the circuits. We only needed six metallic gates to control the electrons in our 10-dot system – in other words, we have fewer gates than there are active device components. Whereas most quantum computing architectures need almost double the number or more of the control systems to move the electrons in the qubit architecture.”

Needing fewer components packed in tightly together minimises the amount of any interference with the quantum states, allowing devices to be scaled up to make more complex and powerful quantum systems.

“So that very low physical gate density is also very exciting for us, because it shows that we’ve got this nice clean system that we can manipulate, keeping coherence across long distances with minimal overhead in the gates. That’s why it’s valuable for scalable quantum computing.”

Looking ahead, Prof. Simmons and her colleagues will explore larger compounds that may have been predicted theoretically, but have never been simulated and fully understood before, such as high temperature superconductors.

See the full article UNSW quantum scientists deliver world’s first integrated circuit at the atomic scalehere .

See the full article Scientists emulate nature in quantum leap towards computers of the future here.

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The The University of New South Wales is an Australian public university with its largest campus in the Sydney suburb of Kensington.

Established in 1949, UNSW is a research university, ranked 44th in the world in the 2021 QS World University Rankings and 67th in the world in the 2021 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. UNSW is one of the founding members of the Group of Eight, a coalition of Australian research-intensive universities, and of Universitas 21, a global network of research universities. It has international exchange and research partnerships with over 200 universities around the world.

According to the 2021 QS World University Rankings by Subject, UNSW is ranked top 20 in the world for Law, Accounting and Finance, and 1st in Australia for Mathematics, Engineering and Technology. UNSW also leads Australia in Medicine, where the median ATAR (Australian university entrance examination results) of its Medical School students is higher than any other Australian medical school. UNSW enrolls the highest number of Australia’s top 500 high school students academically, and produces more millionaire graduates than any other Australian university.

The university comprises seven faculties, through which it offers bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees. The main campus is in the Sydney suburb of Kensington, 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) from the Sydney CBD. The creative arts faculty, UNSW Art & Design, is located in Paddington, and subcampuses are located in the Sydney CBD as well as several other suburbs, including Randwick and Coogee. Research stations are located throughout the state of New South Wales.

The university’s second largest campus, known as UNSW Canberra at ADFA (formerly known as UNSW at ADFA), is situated in Canberra, in the Australian Capital Territory (ACT). ADFA is the military academy of the Australian Defense Force, and UNSW Canberra is the only national academic institution with a defense focus.

Research centres

The university has a number of purpose-built research facilities, including:

UNSW Lowy Cancer Research Centre is Australia’s first facility bringing together researchers in childhood and adult cancers, as well as one of the country’s largest cancer-research facilities, housing up to 400 researchers.

The Mark Wainwright Analytical Centre is a centre for the faculties of science, medicine, and engineering. It is used to study the structure and composition of biological, chemical, and physical materials.

UNSW Canberra Cyber is a cyber-security research and teaching centre.

The Sino-Australian Research Centre for Coastal Management (SARCCM) has a multidisciplinary focus, and works collaboratively with the Ocean University of China [中國海洋大學](CN) in coastal management research.

University rankings

In the 2022 QS World University Rankings, UNSW is ranked 43rd globally (4th in Australia and 2nd in New South Wales). In addition, UNSW is ranked 13th in the World for Civil and Structural Engineering (1st in Australia), 20th in the World for Accounting and Finance (1st in Australia), 14th in the World for Law (2nd in Australia), and 23rd in the World for Engineering and Technology (1st in Australia), According to the 2022 QS World University Rankings by Subject.

In the 2022 SCImago Institutions Rankings UNSW is ranked 56th in the world overall and 47th in the world for research. Subject-wise, it is ranked 11th in the world for Business, Management and Accounting, 11th in the World for Law and 33rd in the world for Economics, Econometrics and Finance etc.

In The 2022 U.S. News & World Report Best Global University Ranking UNSW is ranked 41st best university in the world and 45th globally in Economics and Business.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2022 placed UNSW 70th in the world, and 46th in the world (1st in Australia) for Engineering, 55th in the world for Business and Economics (4th in Australia), and 24th in the world (2nd in Australia) for Law according to the 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings by subject.

In the 2021 Academic Ranking of World Universities, UNSW is ranked 65th globally, 3rd in Australia and 1st in New South Wales. Also in 2021, UNSW had more subjects ranked in the Academic Ranking of World Universities than any other Australian university, with 19 subjects in the top 50 and 2 subjects in the top 10 in the world. UNSW had 12 subjects ranked first in Australia, including Water Resources (8th in the world), Civil Engineering (12th in the world), Library and Information Science (11th in the world), Remote Sensing (12th in the world), and Finance (21st in the world).

In the 2021 University Ranking by Academic Performance Field Rankings, UNSW is ranked 12th in the world for Commerce, Management, Tourism and Services and 21st Globally for Business. In the 2021 Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities, UNSW is ranked 51st Globally and is also ranked 39th in the world in the Economics/Business category. According to the 2021 U-Multirank World University Rankings, UNSW is ranked 28th in the world for Research and also ranked 2nd in Australia across Teaching, Research, Knowledge Transfer, International Orientation and Regional Engagement.

In the 2021 Korea University Business School Worldwide Business Research Rankings UNSW is ranked 1st worldwide for Finance, 11th in the world for Accounting and 27th globally for management. According to the 2021 Washington University Olin Business School’s CFAR Rankings, UNSW is ranked 16th in the world for Finance and 9th in the world for Business, by total outcome indicator of research excellence.

Study abroad

The university has overseas exchange programs with over 250 overseas partner institutions. These include Princeton University, McGill University [Université McGill] (CA), University of Pennsylvania (inc. Wharton), Duke University, Johns Hopkins University, Brown University, Columbia University (summer law students only), The University of California-Berkeley, The University of California-Santa Cruz (inc. Baskin), The University of California-Los Angeles, The University of Michigan (inc. Ross), New York University (inc. Stern), The University of Virginia, The Mississippi State University, Cornell University, The University of Connecticut, The University of Texas-Austin (inc. McCombs), Maastricht University [Universiteit Maastricht](NL), The University of Padua [Università degli Studi di Padova](IT), The University College London (law students only), The University of Nottingham (UK), Imperial College London (UK), The London School of Economics (UK) and The Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETH Zürich [Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich)](CH).

In 2017, UNSW enrolled the highest number of Australia’s top 500 high school students academically.

UNSW has produced more millionaires than any other Australian university, according to the Spear’s Wealth Management Survey in 2016.

The Australian Good Universities Guide 2014 scored UNSW 5-star ratings across 10 categories, more than any other Australian university. Monash University ranked second with seven five stars, followed by The Australian National University (AU), Melbourne University (AU) and The University of Western Australia (AU) with six each.

Engineers Australia ranked UNSW as having the highest number of graduates in Australia’s Top 100 Influential Engineers 2013″ list at 23%, followed by Monash University at 8%, the University of Western Australia, The University of Sydney (AU) and The University of Queensland (AU) at 7%.

From “phys.org” : “The realization of measurement induced quantum phases on a trapped-ion quantum computer”

From “phys.org”

June 20, 2022
Ingrid Fadelli

The quantum computer used in this study at University of Maryland. Credit: Noel et al.

Trapped-ion quantum computers are quantum devices in which trapped ions vibrate together and are fully isolated from the external environment. These computers can be particularly useful for investigating and realizing various quantum physics states.

Researchers at NIST/University of Maryland and Duke University have recently used a trapped-ion quantum computer to realize two measurement-induced quantum phases, namely the pure phase and mixed or coding phase during a purification phase transition. Their findings, published in a paper in Nature Physics, contribute to the experimental understanding of many-body quantum systems.

“Our methods were based on work by Michael Gullans and David Huse, which identified a measurement-induced purification transition in random quantum circuits,” Crystal Noel, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Phys.org. “The main objective of our paper was to observe this critical phenomenon experimentally, using a quantum computer.”

To measure the purification phase transition first outlined by Gullans and Huse, the researchers had to average data collected over several random circuits. In addition, the measurements they collected included both unitary and projective measurements.

“By starting in a mixed state with high entropy, or information, then evolving the circuits, the entropy at the end of the circuit indicates whether that information has been lost, or in other words the system has purified,” Noel explained. “We measured the entropy of the system after the circuit evolution as we tune the rate of measurement across the transition.”

According to theoretical predictions, the purification phase transition probed by the team should have emerged at a critical point resembling a fault-tolerant threshold. Noel and her colleagues carried out their experiments on random circuits that were optimized to work well with their ion-trap quantum computer. This allowed them to observe the different phases of purification using a relatively small system.

“Critical phenomena of this nature are difficult to observe due to the need for large system sizes, mid-circuit measurement, and averaging over many random circuits taking significant computation time,” Noel said. “We found a way to tailor the model we studied to the system we had available, and show that with a minimal model, the critical phenomena can still be observed.”

Using their trapped-ion quantum computer, the team was able to probe both the pure phase of the purification phase transition and the mixed or coding phase. In the first of these states, the system is rapidly projected to a pure state, which is related to the measurement outcomes. In the second, the system’s initial state is partly encoded into a quantum error correcting coding space, which retains the system’s memory of its original conditions for a longer time.

Noel and her colleagues’ successful realization of these two phases of the purification transition in their ion-trap quantum computer could inspire other teams to use similar systems to probe other quantum phases of matter. In their next work, the researchers will continue using the same computer, which has now been moved to the New Duke Quantum Center, to investigate other physical phenomena. Chris Monroe, the principal investigator on the recent study, is now Director of this Center, and will be leading further studies works using the trapped-ion quantum computer.

“We now plan to continue to study critical phenomena in random circuits using our trapped ion quantum computer. We will add more qubits and mid-circuit measurement to increase the hardware capabilities. We will work to find new observables and interesting transitions that are similar to the one observed here in order to understand more about quantum computing and open quantum systems more generally.”

See the full article here .

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About Science X in 100 words
Science X™ is a leading web-based science, research and technology news service which covers a full range of topics. These include physics, earth science, medicine, nanotechnology, electronics, space, biology, chemistry, computer sciences, engineering, mathematics and other sciences and technologies. Launched in 2004 (Physorg.com), Science X’s readership has grown steadily to include 5 million scientists, researchers, and engineers every month. Science X publishes approximately 200 quality articles every day, offering some of the most comprehensive coverage of sci-tech developments world-wide. Science X community members enjoy access to many personalized features such as social networking, a personal home page set-up, article comments and ranking, the ability to save favorite articles, a daily newsletter, and other options.

Mission: 12 reasons for reading daily news on Science X Organization Key editors and writers include 1.75 million scientists, researchers, and engineers every month. Phys.org publishes approximately 100 quality articles every day, offering some of the most comprehensive coverage of sci-tech developments world-wide. Quancast 2009 includes Phys.org in its list of the Global Top 2,000 Websites. Phys.org community members enjoy access to many personalized features such as social networking, a personal home page set-up, RSS/XML feeds, article comments and ranking, the ability to save favorite articles, a daily newsletter, and other options.

From The University of Central Florida : “UCF Researchers Create Photonic Materials for Powerful Efficient Light-based Computing”

From The University of Central Florida

May 18, 2022 [Just now in social media.]
Robert Wells

The materials they are developing could allow for faster photonic computers that use less energy and could also one day lead to quantum computing.

The UCF-developed, new photonic material overcomes drawbacks of contemporary topological designs that offered less features and control, while supporting much longer propagation lengths for information packets by minimizing power losses. Image credit: Adobe Stock.

University of Central Florida researchers are developing new photonic materials that could one day help enable low power, ultra-fast, light-based computing.

The unique materials, known as topological insulators, are like wires that have been turned inside out, where the current runs along the outside and the interior is insulated.

Topological insulators are important because they could be used in circuit designs that allow for more processing power to be crammed into a single space without generating heat, thus avoiding the overheating problem today’s smaller and smaller circuits face.

In their latest work, published in the journal Nature Materials, the researchers demonstrated a new approach to create the materials that uses a novel, chained, honeycomb lattice design.

The researchers laser etched the chained, honeycombed design onto a sample of silica, the material commonly used to make photonic circuits.

Nodes in the design allow the researchers to modulate the current without bending or stretching the photonic wires, an essential feature needed for controlling the flow of light and thus information in a circuit.

The new photonic material overcomes drawbacks of contemporary topological designs that offered less features and control, while supporting much longer propagation lengths for information packets by minimizing power losses.

The researchers envision that the new design approach introduced by the bimorphic topological insulators will lead to a departure from traditional modulation techniques, bringing the technology of light-based computing one step closer to reality.

Topological insulators could also one day lead to quantum computing as their features could be used to protect and harness fragile quantum information bits, thus allowing processing power hundreds of millions of times faster than today’s conventional computers.

The researchers confirmed their findings using advanced imaging techniques and numerical simulations.

“Bimorphic topological insulators introduce a new paradigm shift in the design of photonic circuitry by enabling secure transport of light packets with minimal losses,” says Georgios Pyrialakos, a postdoctoral researcher with UCF’s College of Optics and Photonics and the study’s lead author.

Next steps for the research include the incorporation of nonlinear materials into the lattice that could enable the active control of topological regions, thus creating custom pathways for light packets, says Demetrios Christodoulides, a professor in UCF’s College of Optics and Photonics and study co-author.

The research was funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency; the Office of Naval Research Multidisciplinary University Initiative; the Air Force Office of Scientific Research Multidisciplinary University Initiative; the U.S. National Science Foundation; The Simons Foundation’s Mathematics and Physical Sciences division; the W. M. Keck Foundation; the US–Israel Binational Science Foundation; U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory; the Deutsche Forschungsgemein-schaft; and the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen and Halbach Foundation.

Study authors also included Julius Beck, Matthias Heinrich, and Lukas J. Maczewsky with the University of Rostock; Mercedeh Khajavikhan with the University of Southern California; and Alexander Szameit with the University of Rostock.

Christodoulides received his doctorate in optics and photonics from Johns Hopkins University and joined UCF in 2002. Pyrialakos received his doctorate in optics and photonics from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki – Greece and joined UCF in 2020.

See the full article here .

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Founded in 1963 by the Florida Legislature, The University of Central Florida opened in 1968 as Florida Technological University, with the mission of providing personnel to support the growing U.S. space program at the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station on Florida’s Space Coast. As the school’s academic scope expanded beyond engineering and technology, Florida Tech was renamed The University of Central Florida in 1978. UCF’s space roots continue, as it leads the NASA Florida Space Grant Consortium. Initial enrollment was 1,948 students; enrollment today exceeds 66,000 students from 157 countries, all 50 states and Washington, D.C.

Most of the student population is on the university’s main campus, 13 miles (21 km) east of downtown Orlando and 35 miles (56 km) west of Cape Canaveral. The university offers more than 200 degrees through 13 colleges at 10 regional campuses in Central Florida, the Health Sciences Campus at Lake Nona, the Rosen College of Hospitality Management in south Orlando and the Center for Emerging Media in downtown Orlando.[13] Since its founding, UCF has awarded more than 290,000 degrees, including over 50,000 graduate and professional degrees, to over 260,000 alumni worldwide.

UCF is a space-grant university. Its official colors are black and gold, and the university logo is Pegasus, which “symbolizes the university’s vision of limitless possibilities.” The university’s intercollegiate sports teams, known as the “UCF Knights” and represented by mascot Knightro, compete in NCAA Division I and the American Athletic Conference.

From The University of Nebraska -Lincoln: “New device gets scientists closer to quantum materials breakthrough”

From The University of Nebraska -Lincoln

6.16.22
Dan Moser | IANR News

Wei Bao, Nebraska assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering.

Researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of California-Berkeley, have developed a new photonic device that could get scientists closer to the “holy grail” of finding the global minimum of mathematical formulations at room temperature. Finding that illusive mathematical value would be a major advancement in opening new options for simulations involving quantum materials.

Many scientific questions depend heavily on being able to find that mathematical value, said Wei Bao, Nebraska assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering. The search can be challenging even for modern computers, especially when the dimensions of the parameters — commonly used in quantum physics — are extremely large.

Until now, researchers could only do this with polariton optimization devices at extremely low temperatures, close to about minus 270 degrees Celsius. Bao said the Nebraska-UC Berkeley team “has found a way to combine the advantages of light and matter at room temperature suitable for this great optimization challenge.”

The devices use quantum half-light and half-matter quasi-particles known as exciton-polaritons which recently emerged as a solid-state analog photonic simulation platform for quantum physics such as Bose-Einstein condensation and complex XY spin models.

“Our breakthrough is enabled by adopting solution-grown halide perovskite-a famous material for solar cell communities and growing it under nanoconfinement,” Bao said. “This will produce exceptional smooth single-crystalline large crystals with great optical homogeneity, previously never reported at room temperature for a polariton system.”

Bao is the corresponding author of a paper reporting this research, published in Nature Materials.

“This is exciting,” said Xiang Zhang, Bao’s collaborator, now president of Hong Kong University but who completed this research as a mechanical engineering faculty member at UC Berkeley. “We show that XY spin lattice with a large number of coherently coupled condensates that can be constructed as a lattice with a size up to 10×10.”

Its material properties also could enable future studies at room temperature rather than ultracold temperatures. Bao said, “We are just starting to explore the potential of a room temperature system for solving complex problems. Our work is a concrete step towards the long-sought room-temperature solid-state quantum simulation platform.

“The solution synthesis method we reported with excellent thickness control for large ultra-homogenous halide perovskite can enable many interesting studies at room temperature, without the need” for complicated and expensive equipment and materials, Bao added. It also opens the door for simulating large calculational approaches and many other device applications, previously inaccessible at room temperature.

This process is essential in the highly competitive era of quantum technologies, which are expected to transform the fields of information processing, sensing, communication, imaging and more.

Nebraska has prioritized quantum science and engineering as one of its Grand Challenges. It was named a research priority because of the university’s expertise in this area and the impact Husker research can make on the exciting and promising field.

Bao’s co-authors are Kai Peng, a postdoctoral researcher at Nebraska; Renjie Tao, Quanwei Li, Graham Fleming and Xiang Zhang of UC Berkeley; Dafei Jin of The DOE’s Argonne National Lab; and Louis Haeberlé and Stéphane Kéna-Cohen of Polytechnique Montréal.

This work is primarily supported by the Office of Naval Research, NSF and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation.

See the full article here .

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The University of Nebraska–Lincoln is a public research university in the city of Lincoln, in the state of Nebraska in the Midwestern United States. It is the state’s oldest university, and the largest in the University of Nebraska system.

The state legislature chartered the university in 1869 as a land-grant university under the 1862 Morrill Act, two years after Nebraska’s statehood into the United States. Around the turn of the 20th century, the university began to expand significantly, hiring professors from eastern schools to teach in the newly organized professional colleges while also producing groundbreaking research in agricultural sciences. The “Nebraska method” of ecological study developed here during this time pioneered grassland ecology and laid the foundation for research in theoretical ecology for the rest of the 20th century. The university is organized into eight colleges on two campuses in Lincoln with over 100 classroom buildings and research facilities.

Its athletic program, called the Cornhuskers, is a member of the Big Ten Conference. The Nebraska football team has won 46 conference championships, and since 1970, five national championships. The women’s volleyball team has won four national championships along with eight other appearances in the Final Four. The Husker football team plays its home games at Memorial Stadium, selling out every game since 1962. The stadium’s capacity is about 92,000 people, larger than the population of Nebraska’s third-largest city.

From The Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at UChicago: “Chicago expands and activates quantum network taking steps toward a secure quantum internet”

From The Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering at UChicago

At

The University of Chicago

Jun 16, 2022
Meredith Fore

A new 35-mile extension has built upon The DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory’s already 89-mile (144-kilometer) quantum loop, launched in 2020. The total network now connects to the South Side of Chicago, putting the city at the heart of one of the largest quantum networks in the country and further solidifying the region as a leading global hub for quantum research. Image courtesy of Chicago Quantum Exchange.

Quantum security trials with Toshiba have begun on 124-mile quantum network; open soon to industry and academics for testing.

Scientists with The Chicago Quantum Exchange (CQE) at the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering announced today that for the first time they’ve connected the city of Chicago and suburban labs with a quantum network—nearly doubling the length of what was already one of the longest in the country. The Chicago network, which will soon be opened to academia and industry, will become one of the nation’s first publicly-available testbeds for quantum security technology.

The network is now actively running quantum security protocols using technology provided by Toshiba, distributing quantum keys over optic cable at a speed of over 80,000 quantum bits per second between Chicago and the western suburbs. Toshiba’s participation in the project makes the Chicago network a unique collaboration between academia, government and industry.

Researchers will use the Chicago network to test new communication devices, security protocols, and algorithms that will eventually connect distant quantum computers around the nation and the world. The work represents the next step towards a national quantum internet, which will have a profound impact on communications, computing, and national security.

A new 35-mile (56-kilometer) extension has built upon Argonne National Laboratory’s already 89-mile quantum loop launched in 2020. The total network is now composed of six nodes and 124 miles of optical fiber—transmitting particles carrying quantum-encoded information between the DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory in suburban Lemont and two buildings on the South Side of Chicago, one on the UChicago campus and the other at the CQE headquarters in the Hyde Park neighborhood. It puts Chicago at the heart of one of the largest quantum networks in the country and further solidifies the region as a leading global hub for quantum research.

Researchers work at The Pritzker Nanofabrication Facility at the University of Chicago. The special facility allows scientists to make and test new quantum technology. Photo by Robert Kozloff.

“The Chicago quantum network presents researchers with unprecedented opportunities to transmit quantum information in a real-world environment and push the boundaries of what is currently possible with quantum security protocols,” said David Awschalom, the Liew Family Professor in Molecular Engineering and Physics at the University of Chicago, director of the Chicago Quantum Exchange, and director of “Q-NEXT”, a Department of Energy National Quantum Information Science Research Center at Argonne. “This extension enables scientists from academia, industry, and government labs to collaborate on advancing our fundamental understanding of quantum communication and develop a secure quantum internet.”

“While this network is impressive in its scope, it is even more important as a testbed of experimentation into how quantum networks can be used. We look forward to working with CQE to explore the development of quantum network architectures that connect quantum sensors and computers together in new, exciting and useful ways,” said Jay Lowell, chief scientist for Boeing’s Disruptive Computing and Networks team

The rise of quantum computers represents both an enormous opportunity and a fundamental threat. Once operational, they are expected to be able to solve the kinds of problems that are nearly impossible for ordinary computers and thus easily break current encryption. In April, lawmakers in Congress introduced the “Quantum Cybersecurity Preparedness Act”, which prioritizes timely quantum-proof encrypting of sensitive information so that bad actors cannot steal the data now and decrypt it when stronger quantum computers become reality.

Scientists believe that quantum networks can draw upon the laws of quantum mechanics to be made virtually “unhackable.” Experts around the world have agreed that the implementation of quantum-secure communication networks is one of the most important technological frontiers of the 21st century.

Hack-proof encrypting can be done using quantum key distribution, which is the quantum security technology that was activated on the Chicago area quantum network on June 6, 2022, in a collaboration with Toshiba. Key distribution is a routine part of most internet security, but quantum technology can make it virtually impervious to hacking. In quantum key distribution, secret digital keys are distributed using quantum security protocols among parties communicating sensitive data. The quantum keys are sent through a network of optical fiber via particles of light, called photons, using the photons’ quantum properties to encode the bits that make up the keys. Any attempt to intercept the photons destroys the information they hold.

This kind of unhackable communication has applications anywhere secure communication is particularly vital, including industries such as finance, defense, voting and others.

“We’re thrilled to continue our partnership with the Chicago Quantum Exchange as trials begin on the network,” said Yasushi Kawakura, vice president of digital solutions at Toshiba. “It’s paramount that we develop quantum-proof technology to proactively defend against threats from the quantum future.”

See the full article here .

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The Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering is the first school of engineering at the University of Chicago. It was founded as the Institute for Molecular Engineering in 2011 by the university in partnership with Argonne National Laboratory. When the program was raised to the status of a school in 2019, it became the first school dedicated to molecular engineering in the United States. It is named for a major benefactor, the Pritzker Foundation.

The scientists, engineers, and students at PME use scientific research to pursue engineering solutions. The school does not have departments. Instead, it organizes its research around interdisciplinary “themes”: immuno-engineering, quantum engineering, autonomous materials, and water and energy. PME works toward technological advancements in areas of global importance, including sustainable energy and natural resources, immunotherapy-based approaches to cancer, “unhackable” communications networks, and a clean global water supply. The school plans to expand its research areas to address more issues of global importance.

IME was established in 2011, after three years of discussion and review. It was the largest academic program founded by the University of Chicago since 1988, when the Harris School of Public Policy Studies was established.

Matthew Tirrell was appointed founding Pritzker Director of IME in July 2011. The Pritzker Directorship honors the Pritzker Foundation, which donated a large gift in support of the institute. Tirrell is a researcher in biomolecular engineering and nanotechnology. His honors include election to The National Academy of Engineering, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and The National Academy of Sciences. He became dean of PME in 2019.

The William Eckhardt Research Center (WERC), which houses the school and part of the Physical Sciences Division, was constructed between 2011 and 2015. The WERC was named for alumnus William Eckhardt, in recognition of his donation to support scientific research at the university.

In 2019, the school received more than $23.1 million in research funding. From 2011 to 2019, faculty at the school have filed 69 invention disclosures and have created six companies.

On May 28, 2019, the University of Chicago announced a $100 million commitment from the Pritzker Foundation to support the institute’s transition to a school—the first school of molecular engineering in the U.S. The Pritzker Foundation helped establish the school with a new donation of $75 million, adding to an earlier $25 million donation that supported the institute and the construction of the Pritzker Nanofabrication Facility. In 2019, PME became the university’s first new school in three decades.

PME offers a graduate program in molecular engineering for both Master and Ph.D. students, as well as an undergraduate major and minor in molecular engineering offered with the College of the University of Chicago.

The institute began accepting applications to its doctoral program in fall 2013. The first class of graduate students was matriculated the following fall. In 2019, the school had 28 faculty members, 91 undergraduate students, 134 graduate students, and 75 postdoctoral fellows.

The graduate program curriculum includes various science and engineering disciplines, product design, entrepreneurship, and communication. The program is interdisciplinary, featuring a connected art program called STAGE Lab. STAGE Lab creates plays and films in the context of scientific research at PME.

The undergraduate major was added in spring 2015. It was the first engineering major offered at the University of Chicago. In 2018, the first undergraduate class received degrees in molecular engineering. When the school was established in 2019, it announced plans to expand its undergraduate offerings.

David Awschalom, a professor at PME, said the school has contributed to Chicago becoming a hub for quantum education and research. PME offers an advanced degree in quantum science and engineering. It also partnered with Harvard University to launch the Quantum Information Science and Engineering Network, a graduate student training program in quantum science and engineering. Participating students are paired with two mentors—one from academia and one from industry. The program was funded by a $1.6 million award from the National Science Foundation.

The school’s partnership with Argonne National Laboratory provides additional opportunities for research and innovation. Argonne’s facilities include the Advanced Photon Source, the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility, and the Center for Nanoscale Materials. The lab also has experience licensing new technology for industrial and commercial applications.

PME’s educational outreach initiatives include K-12 programs with events and internships throughout the year. In 2019, with the establishment of PME, the school also launched a partnership with City Colleges of Chicago. The multi-year program connects City College students interested in STEM fields with PME faculty and labs, with the goal of enabling these students to transfer into four-year STEM degree programs.

The University of Chicago is an urban research university that has driven new ways of thinking since 1890. Our commitment to free and open inquiry draws inspired scholars to our global campuses, where ideas are born that challenge and change the world.

We empower individuals to challenge conventional thinking in pursuit of original ideas. Students in the College develop critical, analytic, and writing skills in our rigorous, interdisciplinary core curriculum. Through graduate programs, students test their ideas with University of Chicago scholars, and become the next generation of leaders in academia, industry, nonprofits, and government.

University of Chicago research has led to such breakthroughs as discovering the link between cancer and genetics, establishing revolutionary theories of economics, and developing tools to produce reliably excellent urban schooling. We generate new insights for the benefit of present and future generations with our national and affiliated laboratories: DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory , and the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
The University of Chicago is enriched by the city we call home. In partnership with our neighbors, we invest in Chicago’s mid-South Side across such areas as health, education, economic growth, and the arts. Together with our medical center, we are the largest private employer on the South Side.

In all we do, we are driven to dig deeper, push further, and ask bigger questions—and to leverage our knowledge to enrich all human life. Our diverse and creative students and alumni drive innovation, lead international conversations, and make masterpieces. Alumni and faculty, lecturers and postdocs go on to become Nobel laureates, CEOs, university presidents, attorneys general, literary giants, and astronauts. The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1890, its main campus is located in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood. It enrolled 16,445 students in Fall 2019, including 6,286 undergraduates and 10,159 graduate students. The University of Chicago is ranked among the top universities in the world by major education publications, and it is among the most selective in the United States.

The university is composed of one undergraduate college and five graduate research divisions, which contain all of the university’s graduate programs and interdisciplinary committees. Chicago has eight professional schools: the Law School, the Booth School of Business, the Pritzker School of Medicine, the School of Social Service Administration, the Harris School of Public Policy, the Divinity School, the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies, and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering. The university has additional campuses and centers in London, Paris, Beijing, Delhi, and Hong Kong, as well as in downtown Chicago.

University of Chicago scholars have played a major role in the development of many academic disciplines, including economics, law, literary criticism, mathematics, religion, sociology, and the behavioralism school of political science, establishing the Chicago schools in various fields. Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory produced the world’s first man-made, self-sustaining nuclear reaction in Chicago Pile-1 beneath the viewing stands of the university’s Stagg Field. Advances in chemistry led to the “radiocarbon revolution” in the carbon-14 dating of ancient life and objects. The university research efforts include administration of DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, as well as the U Chicago Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts (MBL). The university is also home to the University of Chicago Press, the largest university press in the United States. The Barack Obama Presidential Center is expected to be housed at the university and will include both the Obama presidential library and offices of the Obama Foundation.

The University of Chicago’s students, faculty, and staff have included 100 Nobel laureates as of 2020, giving it the fourth-most affiliated Nobel laureates of any university in the world. The university’s faculty members and alumni also include 10 Fields Medalists, 4 Turing Award winners, 52 MacArthur Fellows, 26 Marshall Scholars, 27 Pulitzer Prize winners, 20 National Humanities Medalists, 29 living billionaire graduates, and have won eight Olympic medals.

The University of Chicago is enriched by the city we call home. In partnership with our neighbors, we invest in Chicago’s mid-South Side across such areas as health, education, economic growth, and the arts. Together with our medical center, we are the largest private employer on the South Side.

Research

According to the National Science Foundation, University of Chicago spent $423.9 million on research and development in 2018, ranking it 60th in the nation. It is classified among “R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity” and is a founding member of the Association of American Universities and was a member of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation from 1946 through June 29, 2016, when the group’s name was changed to the Big Ten Academic Alliance. The University of Chicago is not a member of the rebranded consortium, but will continue to be a collaborator.

The university operates more than 140 research centers and institutes on campus. Among these are the Oriental Institute—a museum and research center for Near Eastern studies owned and operated by the university—and a number of National Resource Centers, including the Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Chicago also operates or is affiliated with several research institutions apart from the university proper. The university manages DOE’s Argonne National Laboratory, part of the United States Department of Energy’s national laboratory system, and co-manages DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, a nearby particle physics laboratory, as well as a stake in the Apache Point Observatory in Sunspot, New Mexico.
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SDSS Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, near Sunspot NM, USA, Altitude 2,788 meters (9,147 ft).

Apache Point Observatory, near Sunspot, New Mexico Altitude 2,788 meters (9,147 ft).
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Faculty and students at the adjacent Toyota Technological Institute at Chicago collaborate with the university. In 2013, the university formed an affiliation with the formerly independent Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. Although formally unrelated, the National Opinion Research Center is located on Chicago’s campus.

From The University of Colorado-Boulder: “What quantum information and snowflakes have in common and what we can do about it”

From The University of Colorado-Boulder

June 15, 2022
Daniel Strain

Qubits are a basic building block for quantum computers, but they’re also notoriously fragile—tricky to observe without erasing their information in the process. Now, new research from CU Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology may be a leap forward for handling qubits with a light touch.

In the study, a team of physicists demonstrated that it could read out the signals from a type of qubit called a superconducting qubit using laser light—and without destroying the qubit at the same time.

Artist’s depiction of an electro-optic transducer, an ultra-thin device that can capture and transform the signals coming from a superconducting qubit. (Credit: Steven Burrows/JILA)

The group’s results could be a major step toward building a quantum internet, the researchers say. Such a network would link up dozens or even hundreds of quantum chips, allowing engineers to solve problems that are beyond the reach of even the fastest supercomputers around today. They could also, theoretically, use a similar set of tools to send unbreakable codes over long distances.

The study, published June 15 in the journal Nature, was led by JILA [Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics], a joint research institute between CU Boulder and NIST.

“Currently, there’s no way to send quantum signals between distant superconducting processors like we send signals between two classical computers,” said Robert Delaney, lead author of the study and a former graduate student at JILA.

Quantum computers, which run on qubits, get their power by tapping into the properties of quantum physics, or the physics governing very small things. Delaney explained the traditional bits that run your laptop are pretty limited: They can only take on a value of zero or one, the numbers that underly most computer programming to date. Qubits, in contrast, can be zeros, ones or, through a property called “superposition,” exist as zeros and ones at the same time.

But working with qubits is also a bit like trying to catch a snowflake in your warm hand. Even the tiniest disturbance can collapse that superposition, causing them to look like normal bits.

In the new study, Delaney and his colleagues showed they could get around that fragility. The team uses a wafer-thin piece of silicon and nitrogen to transform the signal coming out of a superconducting qubit into visible light—the same sort of light that already carries digital signals from city to city through fiberoptic cables.

“Researchers have done experiments to extract optical light from a qubit, but not disrupting the qubit in the process is a challenge,” said study co-author Cindy Regal, JILA fellow and associate professor of physics at CU Boulder.

Fragile qubits

There are a lot of different ways to make a qubit, she added.

Some scientists have assembled qubits by trapping an atom in laser light. Others have experimented with embedding qubits into diamonds and other crystals. Companies like IBM and Google have begun designing quantum computer chips using qubits made from superconductors.

A quantum computer chip designed by IBM that includes four superconducting qubits. (Credit: npj Quantum Information, 2017)

Superconductors are materials that electrons can speed around without resistance. Under the right circumstances, superconductors will emit quantum signals in the form of tiny particles of light, or “photons,” that oscillate at microwave frequencies.

And that’s where the problem starts, Delaney said.

To send those kinds of quantum signals over long distances, researchers would first need to convert microwave photons into visible light, or optical, photons—which can whiz in relative safety through networks fiberoptic cables across town or even between cities. But when it comes to quantum computers, achieving that transformation is tricky, said study co-author Konrad Lehnert.

In part, that’s because one of the main tools you need to turn microwave photons into optical photons is laser light, and lasers are the nemesis of superconducting qubits. If even one stray photon from a laser beam hits your qubit, it will erase completely.

“The fragility of qubits and the essential incompatibility between superconductors and laser light makes usually prevents this kind of readout,” said Lehnert, a NIST and JILA fellow.

Secret codes

To get around that obstacle, the team turned to a go-between: a thin piece of material called an electro-optic transducer.

Delaney explained the team begins by zapping that wafer, which is too small to see without a microscope, with laser light. When microwave photons from a qubit bump into the device, it wobbles and spits out more photons—but these ones now oscillate at a completely different frequency. Microwave light goes in, and visible light comes out

In the latest study, the researchers tested their transducer using a real superconducting qubit. They discovered the thin material could achieve this switcheroo while also effectively keeping those mortal enemies, qubits and lasers, isolated from each other. In other words, none of the photons from the laser light leaked back to disrupt the superconductor.

“Our electro-optic transducer does not have much effect on the qubit,” Delaney said.

The team hasn’t gotten to the point where it can transmit actual quantum information through its microscopic telephone booth. Among other issues, the device isn’t particularly efficient yet. It takes about 500 microwave photons, on average, to produce a single visible light photon.

The researchers are currently working to improve that rate. Once they do, new possibilities may emerge in the quantum realm. Scientists could, theoretically, use a similar set of tools to send quantum signals over cables that would automatically erase their information when someone was trying to listen in. Mission Impossible made real, in other words, and all thanks to the sensitive qubit.

See the full article here .

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

As the flagship university of the state of Colorado The University of Colorado-Boulder , founded in 1876, five months before Colorado became a state. It is a dynamic community of scholars and learners situated on one of the most spectacular college campuses in the country, and is classified as an R1 University, meaning that it engages in a very high level of research activity. As one of 34 U.S. public institutions belonging to the prestigious Association of American Universities ), a selective group of major research universities in North America, – and the only member in the Rocky Mountain region – we have a proud tradition of academic excellence, with five Nobel laureates and more than 50 members of prestigious academic academies.

University of Colorado-Boulder has blossomed in size and quality since we opened our doors in 1877 – attracting superb faculty, staff, and students and building strong programs in the sciences, engineering, business, law, arts, humanities, education, music, and many other disciplines.

Today, with our sights set on becoming the standard for the great comprehensive public research universities of the new century, we strive to serve the people of Colorado and to engage with the world through excellence in our teaching, research, creative work, and service.

In 2015, the university comprised nine colleges and schools and offered over 150 academic programs and enrolled almost 17,000 students. Five Nobel Laureates, nine MacArthur Fellows, and 20 astronauts have been affiliated with CU Boulder as students; researchers; or faculty members in its history. In 2010, the university received nearly $454 million in sponsored research to fund programs like the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and JILA. CU Boulder has been called a Public Ivy, a group of publicly funded universities considered as providing a quality of education comparable to those of the Ivy League.

The Colorado Buffaloes compete in 17 varsity sports and are members of the NCAA Division I Pac-12 Conference. The Buffaloes have won 28 national championships: 20 in skiing, seven total in men’s and women’s cross country, and one in football. The university has produced a total of ten Olympic medalists. Approximately 900 students participate in 34 intercollegiate club sports annually as well.

On March 14, 1876, the Colorado territorial legislature passed an amendment to the state constitution that provided money for the establishment of the University of Colorado in Boulder, the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, and the Colorado State University – College of Agricultural Sciences in Fort Collins.

Two cities competed for the site of the University of Colorado: Boulder and Cañon City. The consolation prize for the losing city was to be home of the new Colorado State Prison. Cañon City was at a disadvantage as it was already the home of the Colorado Territorial Prison. (There are now six prisons in the Cañon City area.)

The cornerstone of the building that became Old Main was laid on September 20, 1875. The doors of the university opened on September 5, 1877. At the time, there were few high schools in the state that could adequately prepare students for university work, so in addition to the University, a preparatory school was formed on campus. In the fall of 1877, the student body consisted of 15 students in the college proper and 50 students in the preparatory school. There were 38 men and 27 women, and their ages ranged from 12–23 years.

During World War II, Colorado was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a navy commission.

University of Colorado-Boulder hired its first female professor, Mary Rippon, in 1878. It hired its first African-American professor, Charles H. Nilon, in 1956, and its first African-American librarian, Mildred Nilon, in 1962. Its first African American female graduate, Lucile Berkeley Buchanan, received her degree in 1918.

Research institutes

University of Colorado-Boulder’s research mission is supported by eleven research institutes within the university. Each research institute supports faculty from multiple academic departments, allowing institutes to conduct truly multidisciplinary research.

The Institute for Behavioral Genetics (IBG) is a research institute within the Graduate School dedicated to conducting and facilitating research on the genetic and environmental bases of individual differences in behavior. After its founding in 1967 IBG led the resurging interest in genetic influences on behavior. IBG was the first post-World War II research institute dedicated to research in behavioral genetics. IBG remains one of the top research facilities for research in behavioral genetics, including human behavioral genetics, psychiatric genetics, quantitative genetics, statistical genetics, and animal behavioral genetics.

The Institute of Cognitive Science (ICS) at CU Boulder promotes interdisciplinary research and training in cognitive science. ICS is highly interdisciplinary; its research focuses on education, language processing, emotion, and higher level cognition using experimental methods. It is home to a state-of-the-art fMRI system used to collect neuroimaging data.

ATLAS Institute is a center for interdisciplinary research and academic study, where engineering, computer science and robotics are blended with design-oriented topics. Part of CU Boulder’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, the institute offers academic programs at the undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels, and administers research labs, hacker and makerspaces, and a black box experimental performance studio. At the beginning of the 2018–2019 academic year, approximately 1,200 students were enrolled in ATLAS academic programs and the institute sponsored six research labs.[64]

In addition to IBG, ICS and ATLAS, the university’s other institutes include Biofrontiers Institute, Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, Institute of Arctic & Alpine Research (INSTAAR), Institute of Behavioral Science (IBS), JILA, Laboratory for Atmospheric & Space Physics (LASP), Renewable & Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI), and the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History.

From The Chinese Academy of Sciences [中国科学院](CN): “Scientists Observe Large-scale and Ordered and Tunable Majorana-zero-mode Lattice”

From The Chinese Academy of Sciences [中国科学院](CN)

Jun 10, 2022
GAO Hongjun
Institute of Physics
hjgao@iphy.ac.cn

Fig. 1. Characterization of biaxial CDW region. (Image by Institute of Physics)

Fig. 2. MZM in vortices. (Image by Institute of Physics)

Fig. 3. Majorana mechanism in “LiFeAs”. (Image by Institute of Physics)

Fig. 4. Tuning the MZM lattice with magnetic field. (Image by Institute of Physics)

In a study published in Nature on June 8, a joint research team led by Prof. GAO Hongjun from the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) has reported observation of a large-scale, ordered and tunable Majorana-zero-mode (MZM) lattice in the iron-based superconductor “LiFeAs”, providing a new pathway towards future topological quantum computation.

MZMs are zero-energy bound states confined in the topological defects of crystals, such as line defects and magnetic field-induced vortices. They are characterized by scanning tunnelling microscopy/spectroscopy (STM/S) as zero-bias conductance peaks. They obey non-Abelian statistics and are considered building blocks for future topological quantum computation.

MZMs have been observed in several topologically nontrivial iron-based superconductors, such as Fe (Te0.55Se0.45), (Li0.84Fe0.16)OHFeSe, and CaKFe4As4. However, these materials suffer from issues with alloying-induced disorder, uncontrollable and disordered vortex lattices, and the low yield of topological vortices, all of which hinder their further study and application.

In this study, the researchers observed the formation of an ordered and tunable MZM lattice in the naturally strained superconductor “LiFeAs”. Using STM/S equipped with magnetic fields, the researchers found that local strain naturally exists in “LiFeAs”. Biaxial charge density wave (CDW) stripes along the Fe-Fe and As-As directions are produced by the strain, with wave vectors of λ1~2.7 nm and λ2~24.3 nm. The CDW with wavevector λ2 shows strong modulation on the superconductivity of “LiFeAs”.

Under a magnetic field perpendicular to the sample surface, the vortices emerge and are forced to align exclusively along the As-As CDW stripes, forming an ordered lattice. The reduced crystal symmetry leads to a drastic change in the topological band structures at the Fermi level, thus transforming the vortices into topological ones hosting MZMs and forming an ordered MZM lattice. Moreover, the MZM lattice density and geometry are tunable by an external magnetic field. The MZMs start to couple with each other under high magnetic fields.

This observation of a large-scale, ordered and tunable MZM lattice in “LiFeAs” expands the MZM family found in iron-based superconductors, thus providing a promising platform for manipulating and braiding MZMs in the future, according to the researchers.

These findings may shed light on the study of topological quantum computation using iron-based superconductors.

This study was supported by the National Science Foundation of China, the Ministry of Science and Technology of China, and CAS.

See the full article here.

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

The Chinese Academy of Sciences[中国科学院](CN) is the national academy for the natural sciences of the People’s Republic of China. It has historical origins in the Academia Sinica during the Republican era and was formerly also known by that name. Collectively known as the “Two Academies (两院)” along with the Chinese Academy of Engineering, it functions as the national scientific think tank and academic governing body, providing advisory and appraisal services on issues stemming from the national economy, social development, and science and technology progress. It is headquartered in Xicheng District, Beijing, with branch institutes all over mainland China. It has also created hundreds of commercial enterprises, Lenovo being one of the most famous.

It is the world’s largest research organization, comprising around 60,000 researchers working in 114 institutes, and has been consistently ranked among the top research organizations around the world. It also holds the University of Science and Technology of China and the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences has been ranked the No. 1 research institute in the world by Nature Index since the list’s inception in 2016 by Nature Portfolio. It is the most productive institution publishing articles of sustainable development indexed in Web of Science from 1981 to 2018 among all universities and research institutions in the world.

The Chinese Academy originated in the Academia Sinica founded, in 1928, by the Republic of China. After the Communist Party took control of mainland China in 1949, the residual of Academia Sinica was renamed Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), while others relocated to Taiwan.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences has six academic divisions:

Chemistry (化学部)
Information Technological Sciences (信息技术科学部)
Earth Sciences (地学部)
Life Sciences and Medical Sciences (生命科学和医学学部)
Mathematics and Physics (数学物理学部)
Technological Sciences (技术科学部)

The CAS has thirteen regional branches, in Beijing, Shenyang, Changchun, Shanghai, Nanjing, Wuhan, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Kunming, Xi’an, Lanzhou, Hefei and Xinjiang. It has over one hundred institutes and four universities (the University of Science and Technology of China at Hefei, Anhui, the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, ShanghaiTech University, and Shenzhen Institute of Adavanced Technology). Backed by the institutes of CAS, UCAS is headquartered in Beijing, with graduate education bases in Shanghai, Chengdu, Wuhan, Guangzhou and Lanzhou, four Science Libraries of Chinese Academy of Sciences, three technology support centers and two news and publishing units. These CAS branches and offices are located in 20 provinces and municipalities throughout China. CAS has invested in or created over 430 science- and technology-based enterprises in eleven industries, including eight companies listed on stock exchanges.

Being granted a Fellowship of the Academy represents the highest level of national honor for Chinese scientists. The CAS membership system includes Academicians (院士), Emeritus Academicians (荣誉院士) and Foreign Academicians (外籍院士).

The Chinese Academy of Sciences was ranked #1 in the 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020 Nature Index Annual Tables, which measure the largest contributors to papers published in 82 leading journals.

Research institutes

Beijing Branch
University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (UCAS)
Academy of Mathematics and Systems Science
Institute of Acoustics (IOA)
Institute of Atmospheric Physics
Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences
Institute of Physics (IOPCAS)
Institute of Semiconductors
Institute of Electrical Engineering (IEE)
Institute of Information Engineering (IIE)
Institute of Theoretical Physics
Institute of High Energy Physics
Institute of Biophysics
Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology
Institute of Electronics
National Astronomical Observatories
Institute of Computing Technology
Institute of Software
Institute of Automation
Beijing Institute of Genomics
Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources
Institute of Geology and Geophysics (IGG)
Institute of Remote Sensing and Digital Earth
Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research
Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology
National Center for Nanoscience and Technology
Institute of Policy and Management
Institute of Psychology
Institute of Zoology
Changchun Branch
Changchun Institute of Optics, Fine Mechanics and Physics
Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry
Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology
Changchun Observatory
Chengdu Branch
Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment
Chengdu Institute of Biology
Institute of Optics and Electronics
Chengdu Institute of Organic Chemistry
Institute of Computer Application
Chongqing Institute of Green and Intelligent Technology
Guangzhou Branch
South China Botanical Garden
Shenzhen Institutes of Advanced Technology
South China Sea Institute of Oceanology
Guangzhou Institute of Energy Conversion
Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry
Guangzhou Institute of Biomedicine and Health
Guiyang Branch
Institute of Geochemistry
Hefei Branch
Hefei Institutes of Physical Science
University of Science and Technology of China
Kunming Branch
Kunming Institute of Botany
Kunming Institute of Zoology
Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden
Institute of Geochemistry
Yunnan Astronomical Observatory
Lanzhou Branch
Institute of Modern Physics
Lanzhou Institute of Chemical Physics
Lanzhou Institute of Geology
Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology
Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources
Qinghai Institute of Salt Lakes Research
Nanjing Branch
Purple Mountain Observatory (Zijinshan Astronomical Observatory)
Institute of Soil Science
Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology
Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology
Nanjing Institute of Astronomical Optics and Technology
Suzhou Institute of Nano-tech and Nano-bionics (SINANO)
Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering and Technology (SIBET)
Nanjing Botanical Garden, Memorial Sun Yat-Sen (Institute of Botany, Jiangsu Province and Chinese Academy of Science)
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing College
Shanghai Branch
Shanghai Astronomical Observatory
Shanghai Institute of Microsystem and Information Technology
Shanghai Institute of Technical Physics
Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics
Shanghai Institute of Ceramics
Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry
Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics
Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences
Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica
Institut Pasteur of Shanghai
Shanghai Advanced Research Institute, CAS
Institute of Neuroscience (ION)
ShanghaiTech University
Shenyang Branch
Institute of Metal Research
Shenyang Institute of Automation
Shenyang Institute of Applied Ecology, formerly the Institute of Forestry and Pedology
Shenyang Institute of Computing Technology
Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics
Qingdao Institute of Oceanology
Qingdao Institute of Bioenergy and Bioprocess Technology
Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research
Taiyuan Branch
Shanxi Institute of Coal Chemistry (ICCCAS)
Wuhan Branch
Wuhan Institute of Rock and Soil Mechanics
Wuhan Institute of Physics and Mathematics
Wuhan Institute of Virology
Institute of Geodesy and Geophysics
Institute of Hydrobiology
Wuhan Botanical Garden
Xinjiang Branch
Xinjiang Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry
Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography
Xi’an Branch
Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics
National Time Service Center
Institute of Earth Environment

From The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory and The University of Illinois-Chicago : “University of Illinois-Chicago Joins Brookhaven Lab’s Quantum Center”

From The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory

and

The University of Illinois-Chicago

June 9, 2022
Written by Denise Yazak
Contact:
Peter Genzer
genzer@bnl.gov
(631) 344-3174

The University of Illinois Chicago’s Engineering Innovation Building in Chicago, September 5, 2019.

University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) has joined the Brookhaven National Laboratory-led Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage (C^2QA), making the public research university C^2QA’s 24th partner institution.

C^2QA is one of five U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science National Quantum Information Science Research Centers (NQISRCs) established in support of the National Quantum Initiative Act, which aims to develop the full potential of quantum-based applications in computing, communication, and sensing to benefit national security, economic competitiveness, and leadership in scientific discovery. C^2QA’s primary focus is on building the tools necessary to create scalable, distributed, and fault-tolerant quantum computer systems.

C^2QA consists of collaborative, multidisciplinary research teams that span across several domains to apply quantum co-design principles in three research areas or thrusts: Software and Algorithms; Devices and Materials. “The Center is fortunate to count Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Thomas Searles among the principal investigators (PIs) from UIC helping to advance the mission of C^2QA in the Devices thrust,” remarked Jens Koch, Novel Qubits & Circuit Elements subthrust leader. “Professor Searles has been an active member since the very beginning of C^2QA at his former institution, and will continue his research.” Professor Searles’ lab is currently applying machine learning methods towards error mitigation in Noisy Intermediate Scale Quantum (NISQ) devices like the Quantum Processing Units (QPUs) offered by the IBM Quantum program, thanks to funding from C2QA. Searles is further looking forward to intensifying his work on quantum state tomography on the IBM machines and other platforms and increasing opportunities in his lab.

“Quantum computing has the potential to completely revolutionize how we interact with the world around us and in particular, how we approach problem solving in scientific disciplines like physics, computer science, chemistry and engineering. We have a long way to go, however, in developing better quantum devices for practical application before this is a reality,” said UIC Associate Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering Thomas Searles. “The co-design center and its affiliated researchers are leaders in advancing quantum-based technologies through scientific research – our partnership with the co-design center opens up incredible opportunities for our students and faculty to partner on innovative discoveries in quantum computing, network and participate in seminars and career fairs.”

“There is some very exciting work involving data-centric models for Machine Learning in quantum information science,” said C^2QA director, Andrew Houck. “Using his access to the IBM cloud machines, Thomas Searles and UIC are really helping us figure out how to more efficiently use, train, and run interesting algorithms on real hardware that’s currently available.”

Searles, formerly of Howard University, is widely recognized as an avid and active supporter of increasing participation of underrepresented minorities in quantum research. With UIC representing one of six minority serving institutions (MSI) in C^2QA, he is an invaluable asset to everyone in the Center seeking guidance on how attract, train, and mentor the next generation of diverse researchers and engineers joining the quantum workforce. “The [NQISRCs] serve as hubs for collaboration for the entire country. I think it’s important that these hubs be as inclusive as possible,” said Searles. “We are, as a whole, an MSI in the heart of Chicago. We have fantastic students within our Electrical and Computer Engineering Department. We’re not only a Hispanic-serving institution, but a Hispanic-serving department with greater than 25 percent of our students identifying as such. C^2QA and UIC are bringing opportunities in the field of quantum to underserved groups in Chicago that don’t exist.”

UIC is Chicago’s only public research university and is an integral part of the educational, technological and cultural fabric of the city. Chicago is not only a diverse city full of fresh new talent in the field, but it is also the epicenter of Quantum Information Science in the Midwest. “It’s the right place, the right time, and the right people. With C2QA having a large concentration on the east coast, this partnership will broaden its reach. We’re bringing something to the Midwest that’s not there currently, so we’re very, very excited about that,” said Searles.

Searles also acknowledged the support of C^2QA and Brookhaven Laboratory staff in facilitating this collaboration, “I wanted to thank C^2QA Director, Andrew Houck, former Director, Steve Girvin, and Operations Manager, Kimberly McGuire. I also wanted to highlight the work of Brookhaven Lab’s Diversity Equity, and Inclusion Officer Noel Blackburn, and National Synchrotron Light Source II (NSLS-II)[below] Director John Hill.”

Besides Brookhaven Lab and UIC, the partnering institutions in C^2QA are The DOE’s Ames Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, City College of New York, Columbia University, Harvard University, Howard University, IBM, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Montana State University, National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Ames Research Center, Northwestern University, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Princeton University, State University of New York Polytechnic Institute, Stony Brook University, The DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, University of California-Santa Barbara, University of Massachusetts-Amherst, University of Pittsburgh, University of Washington, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and Yale University. In addition to its 24 existing partners, C^2QA recently welcomed The DOE’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory as its first unfunded affiliate. For more information on the U.S. DOE Office of Science Quantum Centers, visit https://science.osti.gov/Initiatives/QIS/QIS-Centers.

See the full article here .

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Please help promote STEM in your local schools.

Stem Education Coalition

More than a century of discovery and service

The The University of Illinois at Chicago traces its origins to several private health colleges that were founded in Chicago during the 19th century.

In the 20th century, new campuses were built in Chicago and later joined together to form a comprehensive learning community. In the last three decades, UIC has transformed itself into one of the top 65 research universities in the United States.

As part of the University of Illinois, UIC grew to meet the needs of the people of Illinois, but its deepest roots are in health care. The Chicago College of Pharmacy, founded in 1859, predated the Civil War is the oldest unit in the university. Other early colleges were the College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Columbian College of Dentistry.

These Chicago-based health colleges became fully incorporated in 1913 as the Colleges of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacy. The College of Pharmacy was the first pharmacy school west of the Alleghenies and emphasized laboratory instruction and research.

Dentistry became the first American dental school fully equipped with electric drills. The College of Medicine developed the country’s first occupational therapy program and grew rapidly to become the largest medical school in the U.S.

In the decades following incorporation, several other health science colleges were created. Together with the Colleges of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmacy, they formed the Chicago Professional Colleges of the University of Illinois. In 1961, the professional colleges became the University of Illinois at the Medical Center.

Following World War II, the University of Illinois increased its presence in Chicago by creating a temporary, two-year branch campus on Navy Pier. The Chicago Undergraduate Division primarily accommodated student veterans on the G.I. Bill. The program allowed all students to complete their first two years of study in Chicago before going downstate to finish their undergraduate degrees at Urbana-Champaign.

The lakeside location earned the Navy Pier campus the name “Harvard on the rocks.” The university shared the 3,000-foot pier with other tenants that included the Chicago Police Department Traffic Division and several military detachments. At that time Navy Pier was not the bright, attractive venue it is today as Chicago’s leading tourist attraction. The pier was a dreary, functioning port facility. But because the pier had only a single corridor along its half-mile length, students were able to see their peers each day.

Brookhaven Campus

One of ten national laboratories overseen and primarily funded by the The DOE Office of Science, The DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory conducts research in the physical, biomedical, and environmental sciences, as well as in energy technologies and national security. Brookhaven Lab also builds and operates major scientific facilities available to university, industry and government researchers. The Laboratory’s almost 3,000 scientists, engineers, and support staff are joined each year by more than 5,000 visiting researchers from around the world. Brookhaven is operated and managed for DOE’s Office of Science by Brookhaven Science Associates, a limited-liability company founded by Stony Brook University the largest academic user of Laboratory facilities, and Battelle, a nonprofit, applied science and technology organization.

Research at BNL specializes in nuclear and high energy physics, energy science and technology, environmental and bioscience, nanoscience and national security. The 5,300 acre campus contains several large research facilities, including the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider [below] and National Synchrotron Light Source II [below]. Seven Nobel prizes have been awarded for work conducted at Brookhaven lab.

BNL is staffed by approximately 2,750 scientists, engineers, technicians, and support personnel, and hosts 4,000 guest investigators every year. The laboratory has its own police station, fire department, and ZIP code (11973). In total, the lab spans a 5,265-acre (21 km^2) area that is mostly coterminous with the hamlet of Upton, New York. BNL is served by a rail spur operated as-needed by the New York and Atlantic Railway. Co-located with the laboratory is the Upton, New York, forecast office of the National Weather Service.

Major programs

Although originally conceived as a nuclear research facility, Brookhaven Lab’s mission has greatly expanded. Its foci are now:

Nuclear and high-energy physics
Physics and chemistry of materials
Environmental and climate research
Nanomaterials
Energy research
Nonproliferation
Structural biology
Accelerator physics

Operation

Brookhaven National Lab was originally owned by the Atomic Energy Commission(US) and is now owned by that agency’s successor, the United States Department of Energy (DOE). DOE subcontracts the research and operation to universities and research organizations. It is currently operated by Brookhaven Science Associates LLC, which is an equal partnership of Stony Brook University and Battelle Memorial Institute. From 1947 to 1998, it was operated by Associated Universities, Inc.(AUI), but AUI lost its contract in the wake of two incidents: a 1994 fire at the facility’s high-beam flux reactor that exposed several workers to radiation and reports in 1997 of a tritium leak into the groundwater of the Long Island Central Pine Barrens on which the facility sits.

Foundations

Following World War II, the US Atomic Energy Commission was created to support government-sponsored peacetime research on atomic energy. The effort to build a nuclear reactor in the American northeast was fostered largely by physicists Isidor Isaac Rabi and Norman Foster Ramsey Jr., who during the war witnessed many of their colleagues at Columbia University leave for new remote research sites following the departure of the Manhattan Project from its campus. Their effort to house this reactor near New York City was rivalled by a similar effort at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to have a facility near Boston, Massachusetts. Involvement was quickly solicited from representatives of northeastern universities to the south and west of New York City such that this city would be at their geographic center. In March 1946 a nonprofit corporation was established that consisted of representatives from nine major research universities — Columbia University, Cornell University, Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, and Yale University.

Out of 17 considered sites in the Boston-Washington corridor, Camp Upton on Long Island was eventually chosen as the most suitable in consideration of space, transportation, and availability. The camp had been a training center from the US Army during both World War I and World War II. After the latter war, Camp Upton was deemed no longer necessary and became available for reuse. A plan was conceived to convert the military camp into a research facility.

On March 21, 1947, the Camp Upton site was officially transferred from the U.S. War Department to the new U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), predecessor to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

Research and facilities

Reactor history

In 1947 construction began on the first nuclear reactor at Brookhaven, the Brookhaven Graphite Research Reactor. This reactor, which opened in 1950, was the first reactor to be constructed in the United States after World War II. The High Flux Beam Reactor operated from 1965 to 1999. In 1959 Brookhaven built the first US reactor specifically tailored to medical research, the Brookhaven Medical Research Reactor, which operated until 2000.

Accelerator history

In 1952 Brookhaven began using its first particle accelerator, the Cosmotron. At the time the Cosmotron was the world’s highest energy accelerator, being the first to impart more than 1 GeV of energy to a particle.

BNL Cosmotron 1952-1966.

The Cosmotron was retired in 1966, after it was superseded in 1960 by the new Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS).

BNL Alternating Gradient Synchrotron (AGS).

The AGS was used in research that resulted in 3 Nobel prizes, including the discovery of the muon neutrino, the charm quark, and CP violation.

In 1970 in BNL started the ISABELLE project to develop and build two proton intersecting storage rings.

The groundbreaking for the project was in October 1978. In 1981, with the tunnel for the accelerator already excavated, problems with the superconducting magnets needed for the ISABELLE accelerator brought the project to a halt, and the project was eventually cancelled in 1983.

The National Synchrotron Light Source operated from 1982 to 2014 and was involved with two Nobel Prize-winning discoveries. It has since been replaced by the National Synchrotron Light Source II. [below].

BNL National Synchrotron Light Source.

After ISABELLE’S cancellation, physicist at BNL proposed that the excavated tunnel and parts of the magnet assembly be used in another accelerator. In 1984 the first proposal for the accelerator now known as the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC)[below] was put forward. The construction got funded in 1991 and RHIC has been operational since 2000. One of the world’s only two operating heavy-ion colliders, RHIC is as of 2010 the second-highest-energy collider after the Large Hadron Collider(CH). RHIC is housed in a tunnel 2.4 miles (3.9 km) long and is visible from space.

On January 9, 2020, It was announced by Paul Dabbar, undersecretary of the US Department of Energy Office of Science, that the BNL eRHIC design has been selected over the conceptual design put forward by DOE’s Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility [Jlab] (US) as the future Electron–ion collider (EIC) in the United States.

Brookhaven Lab Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) to be built inside the tunnel that currently houses the RHIC.

In addition to the site selection, it was announced that the BNL EIC had acquired CD-0 from the Department of Energy. BNL’s eRHIC design proposes upgrading the existing Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, which collides beams light to heavy ions including polarized protons, with a polarized electron facility, to be housed in the same tunnel.

Other discoveries

In 1958, Brookhaven scientists created one of the world’s first video games, Tennis for Two. In 1968 Brookhaven scientists patented Maglev, a transportation technology that utilizes magnetic levitation.

Major facilities

Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC), which was designed to research quark–gluon plasma and the sources of proton spin. Until 2009 it was the world’s most powerful heavy ion collider. It is the only collider of spin-polarized protons.

Center for Functional Nanomaterials (CFN), used for the study of nanoscale materials.

BNL National Synchrotron Light Source II, Brookhaven’s newest user facility, opened in 2015 to replace the National Synchrotron Light Source (NSLS), which had operated for 30 years. NSLS was involved in the work that won the 2003 and 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Alternating Gradient Synchrotron, a particle accelerator that was used in three of the lab’s Nobel prizes.
Accelerator Test Facility, generates, accelerates and monitors particle beams.
Tandem Van de Graaff, once the world’s largest electrostatic accelerator.

Computational Science resources, including access to a massively parallel Blue Gene series supercomputer that is among the fastest in the world for scientific research, run jointly by Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University-SUNY.

Interdisciplinary Science Building, with unique laboratories for studying high-temperature superconductors and other materials important for addressing energy challenges.
NASA Space Radiation Laboratory, where scientists use beams of ions to simulate cosmic rays and assess the risks of space radiation to human space travelers and equipment.

Off-site contributions

It is a contributing partner to the ATLAS experiment, one of the four detectors located at the The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organisation für Kernforschung](CH)[CERN] Large Hadron Collider(LHC).

The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organisation für Kernforschung](CH)[CERN] map.

Iconic view of the European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear] [Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organisation für Kernforschung](CH) [CERN] ATLAS detector.

It is currently operating at The European Organization for Nuclear Research [La Organización Europea para la Investigación Nuclear][Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire] [Europäische Organisation für Kernforschung](CH) [CERN] near Geneva, Switzerland.

Brookhaven was also responsible for the design of the Spallation Neutron Source at DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee.

DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory Spallation Neutron Source annotated.

Brookhaven plays a role in a range of neutrino research projects around the world, including the Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment (CN) nuclear power plant, approximately 52 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong and 45 kilometers east of Shenzhen, China.

Daya Bay Neutrino Experiment (CN) nuclear power plant, approximately 52 kilometers northeast of Hong Kong and 45 kilometers east of Shenzhen, China .

DOE’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory DUNE LBNF from FNAL to Sanford Underground Research Facility, Lead, South Dakota, USA.

BNL Center for Functional Nanomaterials.

BNL National Synchrotron Light Source II.

BNL NSLS II.

BNL Relative Heavy Ion Collider Campus.

BNL/RHIC Star Detector.

BNL/RHIC Phenix detector.