{"id":219596,"date":"2025-08-07T16:02:22","date_gmt":"2025-08-07T21:02:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/could-metasurfaces-be-the-next-quantum-information-processors"},"modified":"2025-08-07T16:02:22","modified_gmt":"2025-08-07T21:02:22","slug":"could-metasurfaces-be-the-next-quantum-information-processors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/08\/could-metasurfaces-be-the-next-quantum-information-processors","title":{"rendered":"Could Metasurfaces Be The Next Quantum Information Processors?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/could-metasurfaces-be-the-next-quantum-information-processors2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In the race toward practical quantum computers and networks, photons \u2014 fundamental particles of light \u2014 hold intriguing possibilities as fast carriers of information at room temperature. Photons are typically controlled and coaxed into quantum states via waveguides on extended microchips, or through bulky devices built from lenses, mirrors, and beam splitters. The photons become entangled \u2013 enabling them to encode and process quantum information in parallel \u2013 through complex networks of these optical components. But such systems are notoriously difficult to scale up due to the large numbers and imperfections of parts required to do any meaningful computation or networking.<\/p>\n<p>Could all those optical components could be collapsed into a single, flat, ultra-thin array of subwavelength elements that control light in the exact same way, but with far fewer fabricated parts?<\/p>\n<p>Optics researchers in the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) did just that. The research team led by Federico Capasso, the Robert L. Wallace Professor of Applied Physics and Vinton Hayes Senior Research Fellow in Electrical Engineering, created specially designed metasurfaces \u2014 flat devices etched with nanoscale light-manipulating patterns \u2014 to act as ultra-thin upgrades for quantum-optical chips and setups.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>Researchers blend theoretical insight and precision experiments to entangle photons on an ultra-thin chip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the race toward practical quantum computers and networks, photons \u2014 fundamental particles of light \u2014 hold intriguing possibilities as fast carriers of information at room temperature. Photons are typically controlled and coaxed into quantum states via waveguides on extended microchips, or through bulky devices built from lenses, mirrors, and beam splitters. The photons become [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":534,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,38,4,48,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-219596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-engineering","category-nanotechnology","category-particle-physics","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/534"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=219596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/219596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=219596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=219596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=219596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}