Active Physics & Astronomy Chemistry

ECCS-EPSRC: Ultrafast control of quantum light-matter interactions at the nanoscale with structured light and matter

Funder EPSRC (part of UKRI)
Recipient organisation King's College London Source-published name: King's College London
Funding £497K
Period Sept 2025 — Sept 2028

In plain English

AI plain-English summary

A new class of devices will squeeze and steer light at the nanoscale—smaller than a virus—and switch it on and off in less than a billionth of a second. The core problem is a size mismatch. The quantum emitters that could power future technologies—single molecules or atoms—are nanometres across, but the light beams used to control them are typically thousands of times larger. This makes their interaction inefficient. The team will build composite nanostructures that confine and shape light at the same tiny scale as the emitters, using machine learning to design the materials and advanced fabrication to build them. If successful, the devices will allow researchers to control “dipole-forbidden” quantum transitions in molecules—transitions that are normally impossible to reach with ordinary light. This would give engineers a new knob to turn inside quantum systems. The work is fundamental science: it does not aim at a specific product. But controlling light–matter interactions at these combined spatial and temporal extremes could eventually underpin faster optical communications, more sensitive sensors, or new types of quantum logic gates.

View original technical description
Efficient control of light and interaction of light with materials is essential for advances in imaging, sensing, communications, and quantum technologies. However, a major challenge is the scale mismatch between nanoscale quantum emitters and micrometer-scale spatial confinement of light, which limits the interaction efficiency. This scale mismatch is one of the fundamental roadblocks in the development of future communications and quantum devices. In this program, an international team comprising Duke University, the University of Massachusetts Lowell, and King’s College London aims to utilize nano-structured composite media to design a fundamentally new generation of devices capable of manipulating complex light beams simultaneously at small spatial (nanometer) and fast temporal (sub-nanosecond) scales. The new class of developed devices will be applied to manipulate important quantum transitions in molecules, which are difficult to access otherwise (dipole-forbidden transitions). The program aims to advance computational modeling, machine learning, advanced nanofabrication and engineering, and novel characterization methods, while preparing a new workforce that is ready to address complex interdisciplinary challenges in photonics and quantum engineering.

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Researchers

Anatoly Zayats (Principal Investigator)

Related Research

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Design of nanoscale light-matter interactions and nonlinear optical effects for applications in quantum technology
Attosecond Photoelectron Imaging with Quantum Light
Optical Control of Quantum States in Semiconductor Nanostructures
Controlling photophysics and photochemistry via quantum superpositions of electronic states: towards attochemistry
Scalable Quantum Photonics Control

Original classification

Research Grant

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