News

August 7, 2019 (Rochester, NY) – Today, Congressman Joe Morelle announced that $150,000 in funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF) has been awarded to the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) to support a Quantum Photonic Institute.

The National Science Foundation awarded RIT a grant to conceptualize a new institute that would be at the forefront of quantum science and technology. RIT received $150,000 in funding from the NSF’s Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes program to create a plan for an institute that would expand quantum science and technology capabilities through quantum photonic integrated circuits.

Entanglement is the powerful and enigmatic resource central to quantum information processing, which promises capabilities in computing, simulation, secure communication, and metrology beyond what is possible for classical devices.

NASA has selected a new space mission that will help astronomers understand both how our universe evolved and how common are the in-gredients for life in our galaxy’s planetary sys-tems.

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. Now an RIT researcher has teamed up with experts at the University of Rochester to create a different kind of laser – a laser for sound, using the optical tweezer technique invented by Ashkin.

A Rochester Institute of Technology professor will be part of a small team of scientists helping to contribute to NASA’s new mission SPHEREx. Assistant Professor Michael Zemcov will be one of the 19 co-investigators on the mission. The mission will be used to explore the origins of the universe.

NASA has announced a two-year space mission to study the beginnings and evolution of the universe and determine how common the ingredients for life are within the planetary systems in our galaxy, the Milky Way.

The Photonics for Quantum Workshop is coming to RIT later on this week, and we give you a preview of what will be happening at the conference.

The latest in NASA’s upcoming line of powerful in-space telescopes is currently under construction in Rochester. 
Harris Corporation was awarded a nearly $196 million contract by the agency to begin construction on the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope, or WFIRST.
In 2016, designs on the WFIRST Telescope were created at Harris. It will explore an area of space 100 times bigger than the Hubble Telescope. Scientists hope the new technology will provide more answers about dark energy and alien life across the universe.

The American Institute for Manufacturing Integrated Photonics (AIM Photonics), a Department of Defense-led public-private partnership headquartered in New York State to advance the nation’s photonics manufacturing capabilities, today announced that three National Science Foundation (NSF) funded grants totaling $1.2 million will enable collaborative photonics-centered R&D with the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT), University of California-San Diego (UCSD), and University of Delaware (UD), respectively.

The Photonics & Optics Workforce Education Research (POWER) group at RIT College of Science is participating in an online week-long event called STEM for ALL Video Showcase. Check out their video "Workplace Contexts for Math & Communication Preparation" and vote for your favorite.

The Tiangong-1 was the first ever space station launched by the Chinese. They eventually lost connection in 2016. Joe Altieri is part of the astronomy club in Rochester and knows all good things come to an end.