MPS/CHE-EPSRC: REACT-Q: Entanglement Transfer and Correlations in Polaritonic Chemistry with Quantum Light

Researchers from Columbia University, along with their collaborators at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom, are developing platforms to reliably transfer quantum entanglement from light to molecules. Entanglement is central to next-generation quantum technologies, including quantum computers and sensors. While readily controlled in light-based platforms, entanglement is difficult to realize and preserve in molecules and materials that are the foundations of modern quantum hardware. The research team will develop highly controlled light–molecule interfaces that form hybrid light-matter states known as polaritons. This hybridization allows quantum resources prepared in light to be efficiently transferred and preserved in molecular excitations through the polaritonic state. The team will quantify and optimize the time over which polaritons maintain quantum properties such as entanglement. Their discoveries could facilitate the adoption of molecule-based quantum hardware and enable new schemes for quantum control of chemical reactions. The project will train scientists in the emerging interface of quantum information science and chemistry, and it will bolster the community working at this interface through focused workshops organized at Columbia and Cambridge. This award is made under the NSF-UKRI lead agency opportunity. The team will leverage highly controlled, on-chip silicon photonic waveguides clad with molecular materials under strong light-matter coupling. The project features a synergistic collaboration between Columbia University specializing in ultrafast imaging of polariton transport, and Cambridge University specializing in quantum light metrology. Waveguide polaritons will be characterized with state-of-the-art spatiotemporal measurements using classical light, extracting lifetimes, velocities, and coherence lengths to identify systems that optimize polariton coherence. Non-classical light – including entangled photon pairs and bright squeezed vacuum – will then quantify the evolution of quantum correlations in the polaritons and establish the limits of entanglement transfer from light to matter. These capabilities will be applied to model chemical processes to track how quantum correlations propagate and dissipate through a photochemical pathway. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.