#quantumscience

Quantum Frontiers: Seven Interdisciplinary Teams Win First Scialog Awards

Scialog Collaboration Innovation Award

The Scialog: Quantum Matter and Information program funded seven interdisciplinary research teams in its first year, advancing quantum physics. The device matches the Lindblad master equation, an important quantum thermodynamics mathematical tool. The gadget resembles a minimum three-level quantum absorption refrigerator because dephasing noise provides an infinite-temperature reservoir.

New Quantum Science Phase

The UN has declared 2025 the “International Year of Quantum Science and Technology,” making the program vital. The first conference brought together 57 early-career researchers in physics, chemistry, materials science, applied mathematics, and engineering in Tucson, Arizona, from October 16–19, 2025.

The breakthrough could alter quantum technology, according to RCSA president and CEO Eric Isaacs, who noted its rapid evolution. Isaacs compared quantum research to recent Nobel Prizes in physics and economics, arguing that it can solve critical global problems in computers and beyond. He believed science and technology transform culture and society through “creative destruction,” fostering long-term economic growth.

Broken Silos with “Science and Dialog”

Named after the combination of “science + dialog,” the initiative aims to accelerate breakthroughs by creating new networks that cross disciplinary boundaries. The goal is to encourage predictive and rigorous experimental design above random discovery.

At the conference, fellows formed breakout groups to brainstorm novel quantum research ideas and identify knowledge gaps. This cooperative atmosphere produced brief proposal pitches for ideas generated throughout the three-day program. Jamie Bender of the Brinson Foundation expects these changes to affect various scientific domains.

Keynote: LIGO to Fractional Charges

The conference's two famous keynote speakers spark lively discussions. Rana Adhikari of the California Institute of Technology spoke on “The Angst and Ennui of Measuring Zero” about his LIGO work. Adhikari described the challenges of decreasing random and systematic noise in gravitational wave detectors using frequency-dependent squeezing and deep learning for feedback management. He also discussed quantum gravity experiment advancements.

Xiaoyang Zhu of Columbia University gave her second keynote, “Fractional Charges and Where to Find Them.” Time-domain pump-probe spectroscopy was used by Zhu to discover quantum phases. He explained how high magnetic fields in two-dimensional electron vapors cause fractional charges and presented fresh findings in twisted bilayer graphene that show these phenomena even without magnetic fields.

Skyrmions: Cornell-Led Partnership Highlights

“Quantum Entanglement of Skyrmion-Antiskyrmion Pairs” is a notable funded project this year.Kazuki Ikeda, Serena Eley, and Youn Jue (Eunice) Bae come from UM Boston, UW, and Cornell, respectively.

Bae, an assistant professor of chemistry and chemical biology, will create and control these tiny, whirlpool-like magnetic structures using theoretical calculations and experiments. The group intends to promote quantum technologies and rigorous quantum experiment design by predicting reliable techniques to manufacture entangled pairs of skyrmions and antiskyrmions. Winners of 2025 Collaborative Innovation Award

The seven winning teams represent a variety of quantum inquiry:

The book Quantum Differential Spectroscopy: Mapping Entanglement in Solids by Alex Frañó, Fang Liu, and Yao Wang is pertinent. Tim Su and Sherry Zhang, Spin-Photon Interfaces in Molecular Silicon Clusters. Ceren Dag, Elizabeth Goldschmidt, Luis Jáuregui, and Alex Frañó (Optical Defects as Internal Probes of Correlation) investigated quantum sensing from within. Bae, Eley, and Ikeda: Quantum Entanglement of Skyrmion-Antiskyrmion Pairs. Xu, Liu, and Susarla propose reconfigurable ferron networks for terahertz quantum interconnects. Yao Wang and Yonglong Xie's scanning charge-noise spectroscopy technique for fractional excitation entanglement visualization. Loss of Photonic Entanglement: A Novel Investigation of Classical and Quantum Spin Dynamics in Materials by Fabio Anza, Hendrik Utzat, and Lilia Xie

Looking Ahead

A team of scientists has developed a novel method for cooling molecules with high accuracy, advancing quantum physics and molecular control. Quantum simulation, high-precision measurement, and ultracold chemistry advanced greatly with this finding. It uses narrowline laser cooling and Stark states for high-resolution spectroscopy.

Narrowline laser cooling has long given modern atomic physics its foundation by slowing atoms to a near-standstill to examine quantum processes. While atomic systems have been easy to cool, molecules have been harder. Molecules are more sophisticated quantum objects with rich internal structures and rotational and vibrational states, making “closed optical transitions” challenging. Molecular quantum simulation and basic symmetry breaches have been hampered by its complexity.

Challenge of Molecular Complexity

In narrowline laser cooling, tight photon-cycling systems are the biggest issue. A molecule must continuously absorb and release photons to lose momentum, but its intricate internal structure often causes it to “leak” into unwanted vibrational or rotational states, ending the cycle. Some electronic transitions have been exploited to achieve sub-Doppler cooling and confinement in magneto-optical traps, but only for short-lived excited states.

In their study, Simon Scheidegger, Justin J. Burau, and Kameron Mehling examined yttrium monoxide (YO). A metastable, long-lived electronic state characterises polar diatomic YO. The substantial electric dipole moment and limited optical transitions make this state ideal for quantum control. However, its exceptional features, including a near-degenerate Λ doublet, make it very sensitive to even trace electric fields.

Molecular Taming: Stark Engineering

The researchers overcame these obstacles using “Stark engineering”. In most experiments, stray electric fields are hard to eliminate, causing the molecule to become partially polarised and lose parity. This loss of parity during cooling provides multiple “leakage” channels as radiative decay from the excited state splits into several rotating states.

Avoiding field removal, the scientists changed the molecule's intrinsic energy levels with a modest, regulated static electric field. Utilising the Stark effect, they spectroscopically isolated a field-insensitive Stark state that retains pristine parity. This strategic control enabled the researchers to build a quasi-closed photon-cycling approach that turned a difficult, “leaky” chemical transition into a reliable narrowline laser cooling centre.

Precision and Cooling Records Broken

Scientists applied narrowband lasers on ultracold YO molecules using Stark-engineered transitions generated in a sub-Doppler cooled state. They achieved the first narrowline laser cooling of a molecule by lowering its radial temperature by 0.73(13) µK in free space of the molecular cloud.

Due to the narrow transition linewidth, the laser can selectively interact with molecules at very low velocities. Molecular cooling approaches the single-photon recoil limit, a quantum mechanics limit where photon momentum dominates system kinetic energy.

Along with narrowline laser cooling, the team performed high-resolution Stark-shifted level spectroscopy. They determined the absolute transition frequency to the ground state with a fractional frequency inaccuracy of 9 × 10⁻¹². Like atomic clocks and other high-precision atomic systems, molecular control has developed quickly to this level of accuracy. These measurements both confirm the electric-field control's efficiency and provide vital data for theoretical modelling and quantum simulation.

A Quantum Science Renaissance

This method has significant effects beyond lab-scale yttrium monoxide cooling. Because of their strong dipolar physics and changeable intermolecular interactions, molecules are more versatile than atoms. Flexibility control opens new avenues for:

Ultracold molecular ensembles can model highly interacting many-body systems or operate as qubits in quantum computers.

Time-varying fundamental constants or breakdowns of fundamental symmetries may reveal novel physics outside the Standard Model.

Cold Chemistry: Studying chemical reactions at quantum-dominated temperatures.

These methods can be used to a wide class of polar molecules outside of YO to provide a generalised framework for narrowline laser cooling even more complex quantum systems.

Researchers want to combine narrowline cooling with conservative traps like optical lattices. This could enable three-dimensional cooling to lower temperatures to produce quantum degenerate molecular gases. Such gases are sought after to study novel quantum phases and phenomena that were impossible in atomic systems.