$8.5 Million Research Initiative Will Study Best Approaches for Quantum Memories

Thursday, February 16, 2012
$8.5 Million Research Initiative Will Study Best Approaches for Quantum Memories

The U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) has awarded $8.5 million to a consortium of seven U.S. universities that will work together to determine the best approach for generating quantum memories based on interaction between light and matter.  

The team will consider three different approaches for creating entangled quantum memories that could facilitate the long-distance transmission of secure information. The five-year Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) will be led by the Georgia Institute of Technology and include scientists from Columbia University, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Michigan, Stanford University and the University of Wisconsin.

“We want to develop a set of novel and powerful approaches to quantum networking,” said Alex Kuzmich, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Physics and the MURI’s principal investigator.  “The three basic capabilities will be (1) storing quantum information for longer periods of time, on the order of seconds, (2) converting the information to light, and (3) transmitting the information over long distances. We aim to create large-scale systems that use entanglement for quantum communication and potentially also quantum computing.”

For the full article, please visit: http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?nid=109721