• Quantum

    Highlights

    (Photo credit: Chromacity)
    FIGURE 1. A Chromacity engineer aligns an ultrafast fiber laser with second-harmonic generation.
    Wojciech Gora
    Feb. 10, 2025
    Fiber-based ultrafast lasers—with pulses of one-tenth of one-trillionth of a second—continue to evolve, and near-term advances will expand their use to materials processing, nonlinear...
    (Image credit: Nativo Calavera)
    FIGURE 1. Transforming bacteria into solar-powered lasers: we extract light-harvesting structures from bacteria (left), enhance them with proprietary specially engineered lasing units (middle), and place them into a lasing cavity (right) to create a new type of laser that runs directly on sunlight. The natural light-gathering rings (green/purple) of purple bacteria measure 60-nm across and achieve near-perfect efficiency in energy transfer of captured photons.
    Erik Gauger
    Feb. 7, 2025
    A new way to power space missions piggybacks on bacteria's efficient light-harvesting abilities to create sunlight-powered lasers—and could enable power transmission between satellites...
    (Image credit: IDTechEx)
    FIGURE 1. Overview of the quantum communications market, which is expected to reach $1.2 billion within the next decade for hardware alone.
    Noah El Alami
    Feb. 5, 2025
    Quantum technology is poised to become a revolutionary new threat to data security but, at the same time, offers a way to better protect it.
    (Photo credit: Quantum Science and Engineering Centre, NTU)
    Photo of the quantum photonic chip that predicts the chemical properties of molecules.
    Daphne Ng
    Jan. 27, 2025
    In this Q&A, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) researchers Professor Baile Zhang and Professor Leong Chuan Kwek share the inspiration and concepts behind...
    (Photo credit: Volker Lannert/University of Bonn)
    Researchers at the University of Bonn’s Institute of Applied Physics—shown here (from left) Niels Wolf, Prof. Dr. Martin Weitz, Andreas Redmann, Dr. Frank Vewinger, and Dr. Julian Schmitt—have designed an approach that generates complex states of light.
    Justine Murphy
    Jan. 23, 2025
    A new ability to generate complex states of light could hold the key to significantly more secure communications.

    Recommended

    (Image credit: Andreas Mischok)
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    Sally Cole Johnson
    Jan. 6, 2025
    By tapping into the quantum mechanical principle of strong light-matter coupling, researchers manage to outmaneuver the problem of angular dependence within optical systems.
    FIGURE 1. A misaligned lens inserted into a Bessel beam pre-aligned to an ASM.
    Robert E. Parks
    Nov. 27, 2024
    Precision optical alignment is currently used for centering lenses within cells, but a call from a quantum computing company made us realize it would be more helpful to quantum...
    FIGURE 1. Quantum tech investment timeline (2020 to 2024). Investment of $7.06B across 296 funding rounds shows yearly distribution among major quantum players and smaller deals combined (excluding national quantum strategies and government programs).
    Michael Baczyk
    Nov. 22, 2024
    Three threads, three data sets, and two contradicting narratives. I’m about to walk you through quantum tech’s funding story that can be read as both a bull and bear market case...
    (Image credit: Phlux Technology)
    FIGURE 1. Cryptographic keys ensure controlled access to communication channels.
    Ye Cao
    Nov. 18, 2024
    Avalanche photodiodes, infrared sensors capable of detecting single photons, are at the heart of many QKD systems. Their sensitivity allows them to discern the faintest of light...
    (Image credit: NTU Singapore)
    Two thin flakes of niobium oxide dichloride stacked on each other and photographed under a light microscope. One flake’s crystalline grain (gray flake) is positioned perpendicularly to the grain of the other flake (green flake).
    Leevi Kallioniemi
    Nov. 14, 2024
    Very thin materials can create entangled pairs of photons to be used as quantum bits.