{"id":234300,"date":"2026-03-31T02:20:50","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/finding-the-quantum-needle-in-a-haystack-new-filtering-method-can-isolate-photons"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:20:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:20:50","slug":"finding-the-quantum-needle-in-a-haystack-new-filtering-method-can-isolate-photons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/03\/finding-the-quantum-needle-in-a-haystack-new-filtering-method-can-isolate-photons","title":{"rendered":"Finding the \u2018quantum needle\u2019 in a haystack: New filtering method can isolate photons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/finding-the-quantum-needle-in-a-haystack-new-filtering-method-can-isolate-photons3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In quantum technologies, everything depends on the ability to detect the properties carried by a single photon. But in the real world, that photon of interest is often buried in a sea of unwanted light\u2014a true \u201cneedle in a haystack\u201d challenge that currently limits the deployment of many applications, including secure quantum communication, quantum sensors used in telescope networks, as well as the interconnection of quantum computers to accelerate the development of new drugs and materials.<\/p>\n<p>At the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), the team of Professor Jos\u00e9 Aza\u00f1a, in collaboration with Professor Roberto Morandotti\u2019s group, has developed a surprisingly simple and energy-efficient way to overcome this obstacle. The work was carried out by Benjamin Crockett during his Ph.D. at the INRS \u00c9nergie Mat\u00e9riaux T\u00e9l\u00e9communications Research Centre. He recently completed his degree and is now a Banting postdoctoral fellow at the University of British Columbia (UBC).<\/p>\n<p>Their method not only reduces noise but, more importantly, recovers essential quantum properties that would otherwise be lost in bright environments where current technologies fail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In quantum technologies, everything depends on the ability to detect the properties carried by a single photon. But in the real world, that photon of interest is often buried in a sea of unwanted light\u2014a true \u201cneedle in a haystack\u201d challenge that currently limits the deployment of many applications, including secure quantum communication, quantum sensors [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":427,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1523,1617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-computing","category-quantum-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234300","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\/427"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234300\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}