Making a quantum leap
Researchers from RIT’s Future Photon Initiative, in collaboration with the Air Force Research Laboratory, have produced the Department of Defense’s first-ever fully integrated quantum photonics wafer.
Wafers are used to mass produce integrated circuits or microchips. The microchips produced by this wafer will help to explore how photonics can be used to develop quantum computers.
Quantum technology leverages the effects of quantum physics at the atomic level, where different rules govern matter and classical physics is defied. Quantum phenomena such as entanglement—when particles share certain properties even when separated by an enormous distance—and superposition—when objects can be at two different states at the same time—promise to make the seemingly impossible possible.