News
Specialized STEM camp introduces students to exploding science field
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
June 14, 2021
Just in southeastern Wisconsin, at least two dozen camps focusing on STEM — science, technology, engineering, math — are scheduled for this summer. Some are affiliated with universities; some with museums. Technology companies may get involved; General Electric, for example is sponsoring a girls’ STEM camp at Milwaukee School of Engineering and other sites across the country.
New internet woven from ‘spooky’ quantum links could supercharge science and commerce
Science
June 3, 2021
Research at cutting-edge universities and national laboratories are edging society towards the reality of a quantum internet. The quantum internet still has vast potential to be recognized and commercialized, and it is estimated that continental-scale network prototypes will exist within the next decade.
IBM and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign plan to launch new Discovery Accelerator Institute
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
May 26, 2021
IBM and The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign plan to launch a large-scale collaboration designed to increase access to technology education and skill development, and to combine the strengths of academia and the industrial sector to spur breakthroughs in emerging areas of technology. Specifically, the planned collaboration will focus on the rapidly growing areas of hybrid cloud and AI, quantum information science and technology, accelerated materials discovery, and sustainability to accelerate the discovery of solutions to complex global challenges.
Chicago Quantum Exchange welcomes three new corporate partners focused on computing, communications, and strengthening the quantum economy
Chicago Quantum Exchange
May 19, 2021
The Chicago Quantum Exchange has added three new corporate partners to its growing community: Ally Financial, Corning Incorporated, and Toshiba Corporation.
Together, the Chicago Quantum Exchange and its corporate partners advance the science and engineering that is necessary to build and scale quantum technologies and develop practical applications, such as those for quantum computing and communications.
Three CQE scientists elected to National Academy of Sciences, one to American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Chicago Quantum Exchange
May 10, 2021
Three Chicago Quantum Exchange scientists – Nadya Mason at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Laura Gagliardi at the University of Chicago; and Michael Wasielewski at Northwestern University – have recently been elected to the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), and Mason was also elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (AAAS).
Scientists Supersize Quantum Effects with Entangled Drum Duet
Scientific American
May 6, 2021
Two new papers published on Thursday in Science push the boundaries of the quantum effects physicists can achieve at a macroscopic scale. Both studies observed such effects in thin aluminum “drums” about the size of a red blood cell.
“The tricks described in these two papers are ways of evading what you might have thought is the limit on measuring forces coming from the Heisenberg uncertainty principle,” says Aashish Clerk, a condensed matter physicist at the University of Chicago, who was not involved with either study.
SQMS Center at Fermilab announces Carolyn B. Parker Fellowship for postdocs
Fermilab
May 6, 2021
Fermilab’s Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center, or SQMS, is announcing a new fellowship opportunity for Black and African American postdoctoral scholars this month: the Carolyn B. Parker Fellowship, named for the first African American woman to earn a postgraduate degree in physics. The fellowship is sponsored by the Department of Energy Office of Science.
In long-awaited breakthrough , UChicago scientists harness molecules into single quantum state
University of Chicago
April 28, 2021
R esearchers have big ideas for the potential of quantum technology, from unhackable networks to earthquake sensors. But all these things depend on a major technological feat: being able to build and control systems of quantum particles, which are among the smallest objects in the universe. That goal is now a step closer with the publication of a new method by University of Chicago scientists.
Blueprint for a robust quantum future
Argonne National Laboratory
April 28, 2021
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory, the University of Chicago and scientific institutes and universities in Japan, Korea and Hungary have established guidelines that will be an invaluable resource for the discovery of new defect-based quantum systems.
Sensitive qubit-based technique to accelerate search for dark matter
Fermilab, University of Chicago
April 12, 2021
Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the University of Chicago have demonstrated a new technique based on quantum technology that will advance the search for dark matter, the invisible stuff that accounts for 85% of all matter in the universe.
Nation’s first quantum startup accelerator, Duality, launches at the University of Chicago’s Polsky Center and the Chicago Quantum Exchange
April 7, 2021
Program to leverage the region’s quantum ecosystem, including the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Argonne National Laboratory, and P33, to help startups bring their innovations to the marketplace
A new spin on energy-efficient electronics
Argonne National Laboratory
March 29, 2021
The promising field of spintronics seeks to manipulate electron spin to make a new breed of small and low-power electronic devices. A recent study used Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source to bring the widespread use of spintronics closer to reality.
Argonne’s 2021 Maria Goeppert Mayer Fellows bring new energy, promise to their fields
Argonne National Laboratory
March 23, 2021
The Fellows are conducting a wide variety of studies in several different areas, including two in quantum information science alongside some of Argonne’s most accomplished researchers. The early career scientists will study quantum science topics including quantum bit synthesis via ultrathin layered materials and quantum computing limitations and error.
Bacteria know how to exploit quantum mechanics, UChicago study finds
University of Chicago
March 9, 2021
Photosynthetic organisms harvest light from the sun to produce the energy they need to survive. A new paper published by University of Chicago researchers reveals their secret: exploiting quantum mechanics. The scientists studied a type of microorganism called green sulfur bacteria. These bacteria need light to survive, but even small amounts of oxygen can damage their delicate photosynthetic equipment. So they must develop ways to minimize the damage when the bacterium does encounter oxygen.
Cheap, nontoxic carbon nanodots poised to be quantum dots of the future
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
March 9, 2021
Tiny fluorescent semiconductor dots, called quantum dots, are useful in a variety of health and electronic technologies but are made of toxic, expensive metals. Nontoxic and economic carbon-based dots are easy to produce, but they emit less light. A new study including researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign uses ultrafast nanometric imaging found good and bad emitters among populations of carbon dots.
Scientists design artificial sound crystal to bring heat under control
Illinois Quantum Information Science and Technology Center
March 9, 2021
In the October issue of Nature Communications, a team of IQUIST researchers led by Kejie Fang, Assistant Professor in Electric and Computer Engineering, present a new method for efficiently trapping phonons inside a fabricated device. Their design reduces heating by keeping some phonons stuck in place while redirecting others, and the heat they carry, to a completely different part of the device.
For first time, researchers send entangled qubit states through a communication channel
University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
Feb. 24, 2021
In a breakthrough for quantum computing, University of Chicago researchers have sent entangled qubit states through a communication cable linking one quantum network node to a second node. The researchers, based in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (PME) at the University of Chicago, also amplified an entangled state via the same cable first by using the cable to entangle two qubits in each of two nodes, then entangling these qubits further with other qubits in the nodes.
UW-Madison researcher Victor Brar awarded prestigious Sloan Fellowship
University of Wisconsin-Madison
February 16, 2021
University of Wisconsin–Madison physics professor Victor Brar has been named a 2021 Sloan Research Fellow, a competitive award given to researchers in the early stages of their careers. Brar’s research focuses on developing new microscopy techniques to look at quantum systems in ways that current microscopes cannot. Applying these techniques to study defects in materials — where a perfect crystal lattice is disrupted by one or more anomalous atoms — could lead to improvements in quantum computer performance or the discovery of new physics.
UChicago researcher Hannes Bernien named Sloan Research Fellow
University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering
February 16, 2021
Asst. Prof. Hannes Bernien has received a prestigious 2021 Sloan Research Fellowship. Awarded annually since 1955, the fellowships honor early-career U.S. and Canadian researchers whose creativity, innovation, and research have the potential to make significant contributions to their fields. Each year, only 128 are chosen to receive a fellowship from more than 1,000 nominees.
UChicago researchers present seven papers at major quantum theory conference
UChicago Department of Computer Science
February 5, 2021
This year, the excellence of work by quantum researchers at University of Chicago was recognized at international Conference on Quantum Information Processing, which accepted an impressive seven talks with UChicago authors. The presented research spanned not only several different thrusts of quantum research at UChicago, but also multiple units, including the Department of Computer Science and the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.
UChicago Certificate supports transition to quantum careers
Chicago Quantum Exchange
January 25, 2020
Last fall, the Chicago Quantum Exchange launched the inaugural session of a new Certificate Program in Quantum Engineering and Technology. The initial session of the four-day intensive program, which is taught by faculty from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, brought together 34 career scientists and engineers seeking a deeper understanding of the basics of quantum information science and its applications. A second session is planned for April 2021.
Quantum compiler co-created by Robert Rand named distinguished paper at POPL 21
UChicago Department of Computer Science
January 21, 2021
A new compiler, which converts human-readable code to the explicit instructions that computing machinery, classical or quantum, need to operate, received one of seven Distinguished Paper awards this month at the 2021 Symposium on Principles of Programming Languages (POPL), one of the top conferences in programming languages research. VOQC, developed by UChicago CS assistant professor Robert Rand and collaborators at the University of Maryland, is the first verified quantum optimizer — a tool for rewriting programs to make them faster while guaranteeing that the program’s meaning is preserved.
Pivotal discovery in quantum and classical information processing
Argonne National Laboratory
January 13, 2021
Working with theorists in the University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, researchers in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have achieved a scientific control that is a first of its kind. They demonstrated a novel approach that allows real-time control of the interactions between microwave photons and magnons, potentially leading to advances in electronic devices and quantum signal processing.
Bill Fefferman receives NSF CAREER Award to find quantum computing’s icebreaker
UChicago Computer Science Department
December 30, 2020
Despite incredible promise, the quantum architectures available today remain limited in scale and handicapped by error and noise, falling short thus far of the killer app that would launch a new era of computing. With a new NSF CAREER Award, UChicago Computer Science Assistant Professor Bill Fefferman will pursue the theory and algorithms needed to leap this hurdle.
At the Chicago Quantum Exchange in 2020: A Year in Review
Chicago Quantum Exchange
December 18, 2020
Quantum information science had a banner year in the U.S. with federal agencies awarding more than $700M to support large-scale scientific endeavors, significant advancements in quantum information science, and the launch of programs that will help the nation retain global leadership in this critical field. During 2020, Chicago Quantum Exchange members and scientists were awarded new federal centers and institutes, made advances in quantum science, added 13 new corporate partners, and initiated new programs to prepare a quantum workforce.