News

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to three people for their work with the super-massive black hole that sits at the center of our universe. Roger Penrose, Reinhard Genzel, and Andrea Ghez all helped contribute to the technology to discover, the discovery, and the measurement of this black hole.

An RIT student is on a mission to help build detectors that could identify individual photons from distant, inhabitable planets. Justin Gallagher, a fifth-year student from Rochester, N.Y., pursuing his BS in physics and MS in astrophysical sciences and technology, is serving as project manager for a nearly $1 million grant funded by NASA to create a single photon sensing and number resolving detector for NASA missions.

The unexpected transition to remote learning during the spring semester challenged faculty across RIT to experiment, create, and deploy new methods of instruction to ensure student success. As the university gears up for in-person and online classes—or a combination of both—faculty members are applying a wide range of lessons learned from the spring to keep academic momentum moving forward in the fall.

RIT is launching an online speaker series that will feature international pioneers in the advancement of photonics for quantum devices. The Virtual Photonics for Quantum Workshop begins June 23 and will feature new invited talks each weekday at 1 p.m. through Aug. 7.

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.

RIT will bring international pioneers in the advancement of photonics for quantum devices to campus this summer for a special workshop. The Photonics for Quantum Workshop 2 takes place June 23-25 at the RIT campus.

The optical laser has grown to a $10 billion global technology market since it was invented in 1960, and has led to Nobel prizes for Art Ashkin for developing optical tweezing and Gerard Mourou and Donna Strickland for work with pulsed lasers.

A breakthrough in sensor technology at the Rochester Institute of Technology may contribute to finding other planets like ours.

NASA is awarding a team of researchers from RIT and Dartmouth College a grant to develop a detector capable of sensing and counting single photons that could be crucial to future NASA astrophysics missions. The extremely sensitive detector would allow scientists to see the faintest observable objects in space, such as Earth-like planets around other stars.

Scientists at the Rochester Institute of Technology have demonstrated a new method to precisely measure high-dimensional entanglement from minimal data.

Researchers have helped develop a new technique for quantifying entanglement that has major implications for developing the next generation of technology in computing, simulation, secure communication and other fields. The researchers outlined their new method for measuring entanglement in a recent Nature Communications article.

Awarded through the National Science Foundation, the funding will help support the development of a quantum photonics ecosystem at RIT, with a goal of making the school a leader in the field. Quantum photonics focuses on developing photonic-based tools and circuits for use in the quantum space. In other words, light-based circuits used in extremely small and precise technology.