Hello, and welcome to the 1st Physics World
weekly podcast of 2025.
I'm Hamish Johnston.
The United Nations has proclaimed
that 2025
is the international year of Quantum Science and
Technology,
or IYQ
for short.
This year was chosen because it marks the
centenary
of the initial development
of quantum mechanics
by Werner Heisenberg.
In the early days, the quantum world perplexed
the physics community
with its numerous
paradoxes.
A century later, and physicists are much more
comfortable
in the quantum world.
And it's not just physicists.
Over the past decade or so, a burgeoning
quantum technology
business sector has emerged,
and engineers,
financiers,
and others
are entering the quantum realm.
To kick off IYQ,
this podcast features the Turkish physicist
Mete
Atatore,
who is at the UK's
University of Cambridge.
In a wide ranging conversation
with Physics World's Katherine Skipper,
Atatore talks about Quantour,
I y q's
equivalent to the Olympic torch,
and he also talks about his research
into quantum sensors
and quantum networks.
Hello. Welcome to the Physics World Podcast. I'm
Katherine Schipper.
So last summer was the Paris Olympics, which
was
marked by the ceremonial relay of the Olympic
torch. Now we have to wait another 4
years for the next Olympics, but 2025
is the international year of quantum. And that
too will be marked by
the relay of,
of a of a light source. But because
it's the International Year of Quantum, it's going
to be a very, very, very small
light source. It's going to be a single
photon,
emitter.
It's called, Contour,
and it is
touring 12 quantum labs around Europe over the
course of 12 months.
And I am in Cambridge today,
visiting Contour, the quantum light source, on its
stopover in England.
And I'm joined today in Cambridge by, Mette
Asasier,
who is,
responsible for the light source while it's in
England. He's the head of the Cavendish Laboratory
in Cambridge
and also the head of the
quantum optical materials and systems group. He's also
the one of the founders of the quantum
networking startup, NuQuantum.
So, Messi, thank you so much for joining
me today. Thank you very much for hitting
me.
So first question, can you
explain
what Contour is about and why it's something
you wanted to be involved with here in
Cambridge?
I like to start with the,
the the Paris Olympics and the the Olympic
torch. It is in a sense the quantum
torch that's going around, Europe. We wanted to
be part of it because,
we are part of the European,
endeavor
to achieve,
useful operational quantum technologies.
And one way or another light,
appears in most of these,
strands of research that we're pursuing.
So it was important that that that we
bring that forward. They,
we did have a year of light a
few years back. We're going into a year
of quantum. So it is natural that we
have this this essential part, the optics, the
photonics, but in the quantum realm, to be
showcased across the Europe,
for two reasons. 1, to bring forward, of
course, its importance, but also to show that
we do interact.
We do form a scientific network,
around the concept of quantum light,
and how it can impact the various technologies
that might come in the future. Yeah. So
talking about the technologies, I think the International
Year of Quantum
and Quantar, I guess, is quite a nice
opportunity
to
showcase
to people who don't have, you know, a
specialism in physics what quantum science and quantum
technology is about. Do you think that, I
guess, the general public and
politicians who are making decisions about, you know,
quantum technologies and quantum policy
know enough about what quantum is and how
it could impact them?
It's very difficult to know enough of quantum
given how
counterintuitive
it is.
And I think partly we are also to
blame as we start most of our descriptions
of our work, quantum related work with spooky
action at a distance or mind boggling or
hard to grasp, hard to understand,
completely outside our,
conceptions of what world is and reality is.
That doesn't particularly help in the direction of,
making people aware of what it can do
for you as a technology as opposed to
very interesting science that you might want to,
to study or understand.
So I think what we need to do,
especially in the year of quantum, is to
have a a change of word, a change
of style so that we focus less on
the weirdness of quantum, but focus on what
it can actually bring us. And this is
how you can grab the attention of public,
policy makers,
and, and more most importantly, the young minds
who, might go into this field with an
intention to actually do something useful
to tackling,
challenges that, we might be facing going forward.
Okay. So can you talk a bit about
how that relates to your research? What are
the
quantum
technologies that you're looking at? Mhmm. So within
my research group,
we have a very vibrant team,
tackling multiple directions at the same time, that
keeps me entertained. Of course, there's not just
a one topic that I'm working with. I
get to work with, small groups of of,
brilliant scientists,
on different directions. One of them is quantum
sensing and the other one is quantum networks.
So sensing and networks are 22 strands, let's
say that,
that our work tends to focus on.
On the sensing side, we're trying to see
if quantum properties
of light matter interfaces,
objects, small net of nanoscale objects,
a single electron in some cases or a
single nuclear spin buried inside a material in
other cases. Could that and its interaction with
light
be useful
to understand,
how materials behave or how different phenomena in
physics and sciences in general can emerge?
And having that view at the, at the
nanoscale, at the at the ultimate limits or
ranges, operational ranges that we don't have access
to at the moment. So that's one direction
they're pursuing. As very interestingly, as science takes
you,
to unexpected places, we are also working with
quantum sensors
in life sciences. So we have we're looking
into how we can incorporate quantum sensors, diamond
based quantum sensors in particular,
into,
into cells, live cells to understand their operations
or in larger
living organisms like c elegans, for example,
to see if we can learn more about
their physical properties as they go through a
life cycle. So
as long as there's it's it's about the
development of a technology
with very, very well grounded,
physics and quantum physics aspect of it is
is what highlights the,
the quantum sensing aspect of our work. The
second strand of our research is on quantum
networks.
We're exploring
all the way from basic science part of
it, the understanding materials, novel materials that could
be quite relevant for quantum networks going forward.
They may not, the future technologies may not
necessarily rely on silicon. So we're looking at
other,
platforms to see if there's any advantage if
we look at the,
these materials from their,
devices that leverage their quantum properties.
And we actually push this towards technology a
bit more, and we're actually building
a small scale networks, very primitive,
2 node, maybe if possible 3 node networks
where we like to distribute not just information,
but quantum information
between these nodes. And we have the ability
to actually store it at different nodes
and use it when we need to use
it. So in a way, you can think
of it as quantum networks is there is
a communication,
concept,
but it feeds very closely with, with quantum
computing in a in a distributed quantum computing
sense. So is the idea with quantum networks
that it could one day replace,
like, the fiber optic networks that we have
now? It would actually not replace it. It
would leverage the fiber optic networks. And that's
the there's again the spirit of Contour.
Ultimately, whether you work with,
with intense lasers or light pulses or you
operate at a single photon level, the medium
that you'll transport your light, your, your information
is going to be the same. It's going
to be the fiber optic network. So that's
why we think that it is actually feasible
to implement quantum networks because we don't have
to replace
existing,
infrastructure that we can almost leverage the existing
infrastructure.
Okay. So you're you're sending it across, again,
across the fiber optic network, but
you're looking at single photons. Right? So what's
the challenge
of taking,
you know, taking the existing technology and
adapting it so that we're looking at single
coding information in single photons?
The advantage that we have today on classical,
communication is that,
as photons are lost in an otherwise intense
pulse, that carries some information, a bit 0
or 1,
is is the the the light intensity is
diminished,
throughout the propagation down a optical fiber,
you can,
at a different let's say, periodically, you can
amplify that that signal and continue. The ones,
the message, the information one stays 1, 0
stays 0, and you proceed. And you go
through a little amplification process,
optical amplification.
Now when it come down to a single
photon, the photon is either there or it's
lost. And then when it's lost, the old
information is gone. So there's no there's no
gradual decline of the, of the quality of
the past that carries information. It's a discrete
yes, no. We have the information travelling or
we don't have it anymore. So, so then
you might want to do,
you you might want to do an amplification,
that looks at takes care of this. And
it turns out that quantum mechanically, we cannot
do amplification of information. So
what what we're able to do classically, we're
actually unable to do quantum mechanically. And that
is exactly the reason why single photon level
quantum communication is fundamentally secure, that you cannot
simply amplify and then tap into it by
some, by another means.
That that photon is the only thing that
could carry that information.
So,
so this puts a limit to how far
these networks can be distributed. So that's why
you need to bring a node instead of
an amplifier unit.
You need to bring a quantum node, that
is shortened or let's say,
approximate enough that without significant photon loss, you
can trust,
transmit information from a to b. And then
in the node, you store that information in
something else. Something else that is not prone
to loss like photons, but maybe the internal
degrees of freedom of an ion, a trapped
ion, or or a single atom, or, some
defect in a material, for example, hexagon boron
nitride or diamond.
Okay. So that's something else you're looking at
as well, isn't it? How to store
information in in different materials.
What
are the requirements
on a material or a system that makes
it good at storing quantum information for,
reasonable periods of time? That's a great question.
I think this is the question we've been
banging our heads,
on for a long time now.
There it it comes with the,
dichotomy, actually. It should be isolated enough that
it does not interact with the rest of
the universe
on its own, but it should be integrated
enough
to our universe so that I can have
direct access to it readily and availability. Right?
And and that's that's a contradiction almost. Right?
Either something is well isolated from everything or
it isn't.
If it is not well isolated, it decoheres
very quickly because
as as much as I get to talk
to this quantum defect, the qubit,
the rest of the universe also continues to
talk to, the qubit.
So creating an environment
where the the the qubit is isolated
for most parts, except when we are actually
interacting with this with this cubit. I think
that will be the,
the the
the material of choice, the actual physical system
of choice. And we do have this available
actually. So hence, there is no,
winning materials yet. There's no winning material platform.
That's why we need to pursue multiple platforms.
But the nice thing is that the community,
being diverse in terms of which material platform
they're they're studying or investigating,
we do have a common language. So we
do address a a variety of materials and
devices and systems
with common similar language, which helps build coherence
across the community.
Okay. So, actually, what's the the quantum quantum
light source? What's that what's that made of?
Sure. It's, semiconductor
quantum dots. So these are small islands of
semiconductors
buried inside another semiconductor. Their band gap is
different of the 2 materials,
types. So it's a material based confinement
of, these pairs of, excitons and electron and
a whole pair, that we can store inside
these little islands.
And then the electron and hole, they act
like almost like a little atom on their
own. Like the hydrogen atom is a nucleus,
a proton and electron around it. You can
think, it's it's kind of the same. You
have an electron and a positively charged hole,
and the 2 basically go around each other.
That's one exciton is our quasi particle, and
this has certain finite lifetime,
usually on a 4 nanosecond
or something, so extremely fast. But when they,
recombine the electron and the hole combine, the
total charge is 0. Something happens. The total
energy goes somewhere and that somewhere is into
light. So a single photon is generated per
exciton that was stored inside a quantum dot.
So what we do is periodically we create
an exciton, 1 and only one exciton inside
one of these quantum dots.
And then they combine, recombine, and then emit
a photon, but one and only one photon.
And that's why it's a high purity single
photon source.
And the photon then instead of being emitted
in all random directions, it is funnelled by
a
a a nanophotonic structure,
called the bull's eye structures we call it.
It funnels it into efficiently into a a
a a basically a fiber optic channel, and
then we use the single photon stream,
to do communication by encoding information off to
the photons. Okay. And so
you you spoke about, you know, re you're
reusing
fiber optic,
like, infrastructure that we already have, and then
you're using materials that have very well defined
band
band caps.
And so and and emit photons at very
well defined wavelengths. And I know that in
fiber optics, there are
certain
frequencies that are that are used. So it's
15
1500 and 1550 nanometers, right, is the, like,
the the standard wavelength
of those optics.
And so how do you go about
bridging that
that, I guess,
divide between the materials that you have to
use because they have great quantum properties and
the wavelengths that you want to use to
reuse fiber optic networks?
Fantastic question. This is,
it's it's always a challenge because that's why
there is no winning materials platform yet. If
you're focusing on 1550, there are a couple
of,
platforms we could use,
but they bring their own challenges as to
why they're not necessarily the obvious,
winners.
And then we work with other systems like
these, semiconductor quantum dots. They're more mature technology.
They've been around for a few decades now.
So we've really learned how to make them
pristine and good quality. We learn how to
mold the light that comes out of them.
So they are very advantageous on the performance
of the photon side, but you're right. They
don't match the exactly the wavelength of, 1550
of the preferred, emission. So there are 2
ways you can cheat. Right? 1, you, look
for the next material and that's part of,
scientific research that we do. We, we we
don't limit ourselves to a very particular class
of material platforms.
We go bold. We go, out there and
look for the craziest,
materials you can think of, including diamond, including
let single monolayer of of, some, semiconductor,
2 d material.
And we're we're finding these. Right? So that's,
that's one direction,
to pursue.
That's the exploratory,
part. The second,
cheating, of course, is I call this cheating,
but these are scientific progress, let's call it,
is, is frequency conversion. So we have this
fantastic tool in our hands called nonlinear optics.
That is where if you have the right
medium, a particular, again, material platform
that brings not linear optics, but opportunity for
nonlinear optics, opportunities for nonlinearities
between photons so they can interact and exchange
their frequency. Then you can take a 900
nanometer,
wavelength light and convert that to 1550
with the help of another,
light source. So that appear for what we
call a three way mixing or a four
way mixing,
geometry. So you can almost, you can cook
up the wavelength you want provided you get
the photons
that normally don't interact with anything to actually
directly and strongly interact inside a very special
material called chi 3 or chi 2 materials
or nonlinear materials. So,
this has been demonstrated. So in in a
sense, while we lose a bit the efficiency,
because not necessarily a 100% efficient,
you do have a chance to take anything
you want out there that works really well
and convert that to the common frequency
of a metropolitan network.
Okay. And when when you're actually thinking about
building
these these systems so you spoke about diamond,
and you spoke about hexagonal boron nitride,
where you're actually you're using cubits that like,
lattice defects. So, like, almost like like, holes
almost or defects in these crystals.
And then you also can use, as you
spoke about, semiconductor quantum dots.
How
much control how how much control do you
have when you're actually fabricating these systems over
where the cubits are? Mhmm. It's,
if if you're down to a single atom
level, you have to have that precision to
actually say,
you, atom, move away and then you, atom,
go back in there. So that's very difficult.
And we don't have that technology except in
a very rare case of,
of of scanning tunneling microscope,
approaches
to constructing
a particular device at the atomic level.
Professor Simmons in Australia is doing fantastic work
on this.
She's literally putting atom by atom,
construction or engineering of a quantum device,
that is that small. It's only a few
atoms,
wide. But of course,
from one side is a big achievement. From
another side, this would be quite challenging to
scale up, to make larger devices or bigger
devices.
What we are doing with the defect based
systems is,
that we rely on the fact that optically
active defects,
they'll relevant footprint is actually not the size
of a single atom, but the size of
your wavelength.
Because the the atoms have 2 different length
scales. 1 is their physical length scale within
a crystal, within a lattice.
That's like
of the order of 1 lattice site.
But if they're optically active,
then their optical cross section is what we
call is their physical size that really matters.
And that's off order micron or half a
micron. So that means
it gives us a chance to not be
precise exactly which of the lattice sites our
defects sits that optically engages with, with the
rest of the world. So that gives us
a chance to realize everything we want without
having to worry at that length scale of
of, a nanometer or or sub nanometer.
That's one thing. The advantage for coming back
to Contour,
it's our this, it's quant quantum torch.
The advantage there is that it's actually bulky.
It's not a single atomic,
system. It's not a single defect based system.
It actually is each of these quantum dots,
despite the name dot,
is actually about 50 to a 100000 atoms
cluster.
So if you go back, 2 years, the
Nobel Prize in chemistry was for colloidal
quantum dots. And these were small,
balls of atoms combined into,
to form a particular material with discrete energy
levels, hence the same concept of,
clear single photons. In the same spirit, these
are only they're they're embedded inside another semiconductor,
but otherwise, they are large bulky systems, and
we know where to put them. So we
can actually say,
by by pre processing of the of the,
surface that we're going to grow the quantum
dots, we can actually tell them where to
be with very high precision of of order
nanometer,
few nanometer
precision for these rather,
large systems. So it does give us this
chance to say,
to distribute a large scale,
let's say, architecture of where these,
special, systems will sit. Okay. And now I
wanna talk a little bit about quantum as
a
technology and as a a commercial,
you know, opportunity.
I think that's
I mean, it the if the International Year
of Quantum in 2025,
because it's a 100 years since
when Heisenberg
went to Helgeland to cure his hay fever
and wrote down the matrix formalism of of
quantum mechanics. But
I think it's also been been chosen
because quantum has kind of gone mainstream over
the last couple of years. And I'm interested
to know from your perspective, how long has
it felt like this is a
a part of physics that people are really
seriously trying to turn into
technology and commercialize?
I think the the change of language is
a good indicator for this as as,
we discussed before.
We were focusing on how weird it is.
And we're we we thought experiments,
real experiments in the lab were
mainly to see if quantum mechanics concepts, the
philosophy of quantum mechanics, the foundations of quantum
mechanics is in in
fact, is it valid or not. Right? So
that was the starting point for all these.
Now if you go back even further, the
starting point for quantum physics was, of course,
we'll never measure a single electron. Of course,
we'll never be able to see this effect.
But if we did, how would the experimental
result look like? So it was all like
get Duncan experiment, thought experiment. So if so
they were in a stage 3 now. The
get Duncan experiment has moved into real lab
experiments of demonstrating
foundations of quantum physics. And now we're in
the era of actually turn them into real
life feasible operations. Now there's as with most
exciting emerging, technologies or potentially emerging technologies, there
will always be hype around. And you'll see
you'll see, news pieces where they'll say,
headline will say something like quantum of quantum
computing will cure cancer.
And maybe one day it will, but, but
we're not at this stage yet, and that's
not the main reason why we put it
all together. I think the what sets quantum
technologies unique is that our one leg is
still parked firmly at basic sciences and development
of that interface of new concepts, new phenomenon,
and new material systems
that brings together computer scientists,
physicists, and material scientists, chemist in some cases,
so that we can all inter this in
an interdisciplinary way, look at what beneficial
directions we can push when it comes to,
technology transfer.
Okay. Thinking about quantum
network
speakers, I know that's one of that's the
thing that new quantum
is about right about quantum networking. What are
the big challenges,
outstanding
experimental and theoretical challenges to actually
bringing that technology
to
scaling it up and
rolling it out on a large scale.
Given that the the whole field,
emerged, the experimental side of it, the practical
side of it emerged
in,
physics based research labs
with focus on the the the singular unit,
the isolated
quantum bit.
We have a we know our quantum bits
really well. We know how to control it.
We've improved our techniques,
including our material quality.
What hasn't been developing so far? What is
what is the what what's the what's the
challenge that we're facing right now is the
interconnects.
It's connecting them together. And that's the scalability
that you refer to as well. How to
make 1,000 of these? Actually, it is fairly
easy to make 1,000 of the same good
qubit.
It's not the number that stops us. It
is linking them so that you benefit. You
don't end up with 1,000 independent qubits, but
rather a 1,000 qubit system.
And that
system, requires their their interaction exchange of,
interaction and information,
some sort of a network you need to
put together regardless of whether it's a quantum
computing, monolithic quantum computing you're after, or a
a distributed
metropolitan size quantum network that you're after, or
quantum sensors where we need to make sure
that we have direct links to them. Ultimately,
the
interconnect is going to be the name of
the game. So you're talking about entangling?
That's right. So how to sustain quantumness
distributed over multiple cubits, multiple nodes,
and and ensuring that that is operational, that
we can do something with it. And that's
that's going to be the challenge. The biggest,
challenge in front of us across different platforms,
across different approaches, and even technologies that we're
aiming for is how to get that,
link
preferably with light, how to get get that
link to be efficient and quantum preserving, let's
say.
Okay. And what sort of avenues are you
looking at to try and to try and
get there? It's very interesting. We're looking at
classical avenues. We're looking at ways to make
sure that we are not overlooking anything that
has been developed on the classical conventional side
of photonics and materials,
and engineering and systems packaging. All of those
which physicists
arguably are not necessarily most accustomed to. All
of that is now coming together to say,
is there a better way that we could
do this
rather than a physicist hat, but rather an
engineer hat or or a systems hat? Yeah.
I think I've been I was sort of
surprised to
learn more about us and find that there's
a big
need for
radio frequency engineers because it's still, you know
even though we're using the the quantum physics,
you're still using, you know, that that radio
frequency technology to interface with the quantum system.
Absolutely. It's it's a fantastic field to be
in because you can be operating,
at the far end of the technology delivery
where you're building some architecture of quantum computers
with multi qubit systems. You're doing some operations,
and you identify
what limits you. And you you realize that
what limits you is a material property, and
it goes all the way back to the,
blackboard, the the drawing board. And then
and it goes all the way back to
the, blackboard, the the drawing board. And then
you start, changing the material that you're using
in your devices to build up that whole
architecture, and you find out things have improved.
So if you don't have that link, if
you don't have that conversation, the,
you know, bumping shoulders in the hallway with
a material scientist and a physicist and a
computer scientist, that communication,
you're not going to be able to create
this, the cycling loop of improvement. So let's
think of it as a it's not really
a cycle loop. It's more like a spiral
upwards that as we tap different aspects, we
solve a challenge that's relevant, to certain expertise,
and then we go forward with it. Okay.
And
I was interested to hear the way you
spoke about the the quantum weirdness and how
that has shifted. Because
I think
if we are thinking about it being the
international quantum and looking back a 100 years
to the early days of quantum mechanics,
I think it is
easy to, if you're not an expert, look
at all the stuff that's been done or
been that is being done with quantum technologies
and think that those fundamental questions that were
being asked a 100 years ago have been
resolved, and we're just trying to work at
how to,
you know, commercialize,
you know, the the theory, basically. But, actually,
all of the questions about, you know, what
quantum mechanics means and how it should interpret
it and what it means for understanding of
reality, a lot of that is I mean,
all of that really is still up in
the air, and it's still being debated.
You know, the the fact that or the
the mainstream interpretation of quantum mechanics that,
you know, the state of
an object is is not in a definite
state until you measure it. Is that
something that you that sort of
uncomfortable weirdness? Because because it is. It sort
of defies it defies human comprehension, I think,
in a way, when you really think about
it. Is that something that you think about
in your work and see yourself as
looking into?
Absolutely. It it it is again what sets,
this area,
is is a bit unique. We're more used
to the production line concept. Right? They you
start from the very beginning, the concept, and
then you you make a prototype, you you
you develop it and it continues. So it's
almost like, if if I talk in TRL
language, you start from TRL 1 and go
on to the the final product and you
and and it's it's now in the system.
Quantum mechanics is not like that. Quantum mechanics
delivers
advantages in certain areas, and we're pushing that
forward as a technology. And at the same
time, it doesn't include as a theory, gravity.
So I don't know what to do. Right?
At the same time, I'm fundamentally
limited with what I have, and I know
that it's not complete.
But
in in in in the phase space that
quantum physics covers, there are safe areas that
we can tap into to convert them into
technology without necessarily understanding its full scope and
how it will have to be transformed in
the future to be an overarching theory beyond
everything else that that, harbors all phenomena that
we see today. But, yeah, it's,
even today, the technological
push, say for example, space. Right? Space is
the next frontier for us.
We're talking about secure communications in space.
One reason, of course, you could say is
purely technological and applications. But another reason is
to say,
does the the concept of entanglement,
long distance entanglement, and the the scoop spooky
action in the distance,
idea of,
mention of, Einstein,
does that hold over long distances? That's a
question to ask because on short distance is
fine, but long enough distances where relativity kicks
in, special or general relativity kicks in, do
we actually see an effect of this? Does
gravity actually take part in determining what happens
to the entanglement that was distributed?
Quantum theory
says that there's no mention of the distance
d between 2 objects.
Reality
needs to be checked. So,
some people are designing this very technologically advanced
experiments
to actually test entanglement over very long distances,
you know, space,
space like distance. So, again, it goes both
ways.
We will develop the theory more, hopefully,
and it it there is room to go,
but it shouldn't necessarily stop us using the
parts we know are working well. Okay. Yeah.
It is pretty amazing that a lot of
the
a lot of this quantum technology is based
on theory that when it was first sort
of conceived,
the the the the understanding was, well, this
is this is cool, but we'll never ever
be able to measure it or test it.
You know, we can't we can't get enough
control over,
you know, over quantum objects. And now we
kind of we can just do it. I
mean, I've, you know, been downstairs, and I've
seen the lab where, you know, you're just
you're just doing that as your everyday job.
It's really cool.
So just to sort of round off,
we've talked about sort of the the present
of of quantum
technologies and the past of quantum theory. What
are your hopes for the next couple of
years of quantum and quantum technologies?
I think next couple of years 2 years
is is is a short time time frame,
of course.
The the 2 years is within a PhD.
So this would be difficult to
to expect big leaps within 2 years. But,
of course, leaps come in effectively instantaneously,
having leveraged the years years decades in some
cases of research. And then you get the
big leap. So I expect,
clear progress in
scaling, when it comes to, quantum computing activities.
I expect the first,
well, we do have a a 3 node
quantum network in Europe, and it's diamond based,
interestingly.
It's located in the Netherlands. I do expect,
similar quantum networks to actually be commissioned and
operational,
in many other places. So this is around
this this time. And it seems like in
almost all of these attempts at the moment,
diamond seems to be a material of choice,
which we wouldn't have guessed,
20 years ago, for example.
So I can see again, we'll be more
in the in line of translation towards bit
more operationally
sensible, operationally interesting,
modes of what we have, already. But of
course breakthroughs happen because,
an idea comes when you're at the unexpected
talk at the, you know,
annual conference, for example. And,
the the progress is so fast now, as
opposed to many, many decades ago, that translation
of an idea, a new concept that comes
in to realizing it as proof of principle
is actually can be quite fast given all
the all the experience that we managed to
put together in this interdisciplinary,
community that we built over the years. Okay.
So it sounds like you're open to surprises
in the next couple of weeks. Okay. Well,
thank you so much for for joining me
today. That was Messe Assessure.
And, yeah, thank you very much for for
speaking with me. It was great to talk.
It was a great pleasure. Thank you for,
having me.
That was the University of Cambridge's
Mettetatore
in conversation
with Physics World's Katherine Schipper.
Stay tuned to the Physics World website
for lots more quantum science and technology
coverage this year.
A good place to start is Bob Kreese's
feature article that looks back on the summer
of 1925,
when the allergy prone
Werner Heisenberg
traveled to the tiny
North Sea island of Helgoland
for a pollen free holiday.
It was there that the 23 year old
formulated
matrix mechanics,
which was the first consistent
mathematical
formulation
of quantum physics.
The article sets the scene on the windswept
island
and ponders what was going through Heisinsberg's
mind as he had his quantum revelation.
And it also explains how his ideas have
changed
physics forever.
Helgoland
will be hosting a workshop
in June of this year to celebrate the
birth of quantum physics.
And Kries also profiles
some of the high profile
scientists
who will be there.
You can find that article on the Physics
World website.
Just look for the headline
return to Helgoland
celebrating
100 years of quantum mechanics.
I'm afraid that's all the time we have
for this week's podcast.
Thanks to Mette Atatore
and Katherine Skipper for a fascinating
conversation.
And thanks to our producer Fred Iles.
This podcast returns next week, but until then,
we wish you a happy
international year of quantum science and technology.