The University of Chicago is a key part of the flourishing quantum ecosystem in Illinois and beyond, and with the launch of the UN’s 2025 International Year of Quantum, we are set to celebrate the groundbreaking fields of quantum science and engineering that have and will continue to positively impact humans in nearly every facet of life.
Throughout the year, we’ll share articles, videos, and other content explaining just what quantum is, why it matters, and how this research will translate to faster computers, earlier cancer diagnoses, and jobs in Chicago’s South Side, across the nation and around the globe.
As the Year of Quantum begins, take a quick look back at recent research and innovations from the quantum science and engineering research areas at the UChicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) that are advancing this powerful technology, and revisit how academia, industry, and the national labs combined are making Chicago the nation’s quantum epicenter.
In addition to the major focus on quantum research at UChicago PME, quantum researchers and collaborators span the University, including the Physical Sciences Division’s Physics and Computer Science departments. UChicago PME’s quantum theme also collaborates closely with key partners at Argonne National Laboratory, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, and the Chicago Quantum Exchange.
As a whole, the University and others are helping to advance the robust quantum ecosystem in the state of Illinois.
Explaining the inexplicable
Although the effects of quantum engineering are experienced every time a QLED television is flicked on or a smartphone is utilized, explaining this counterintuitive technology is a different matter.
When descriptions of cats-in-boxes and superpositioned ones and zeroes fail, UChicago PME Dean Nadya Mason and Prof. David Awschalom, who also leads the Chicago Quantum Exchange, took their expertise to a global audience through PBS’s acclaimed science show Nova.
Reimagining quantum communications
Quantum devices will change how we communicate, but scientists have struggled with practical methods of building the networks capable of transmitting quantum information over long distances. UChicago is pioneering this field both in the lab and in the private sector through alumni-founded startups like Manish Singh’s memQ.
Prof. Liang Jiang’s lab has proposed a new approach to quantum networks — building long quantum channels using vacuum sealed tubes with an array of spaced-out lenses. These vacuum beam guides, about 20 centimeters in diameter, would have ranges of thousands of kilometers and capacities of 10 trillion qubits per second, better than any existing quantum communication approach.
In collaboration with Argonne and the UChicago Computer Science Department, Jiang also introduced a groundbreaking classical algorithm that represents a significant step forward in understanding how quantum and classical computing can work together.
Quantum engineering also has the potential to reduce the environmental impact of another recent innovation — artificial intelligence. An interdisciplinary team including Jiang in 2024 showed how incorporating quantum computing into the classical machine-learning process can potentially help make machine learning more sustainable and efficient.
Building healthier lives
The term “quantum engineering” might bring to mind images of high-speed computers and unbreakable codes, but some of the most exciting applications are within the human body. Quantum sensing is poised to revolutionize disease detection and prevention, and help secure Chicago’s future as a biotech hub, as UChicago PME Asst. Prof. Allison Squires told the Chicago BioCapital Summit late last year.
UChicago PME Prof. Aaron Esser-Kahn, PME Asst. Prof. Peter Maurer and UChicago Medicine Assoc. Prof. Alexander T. Pearson in 2024 received a $900,000 grant from the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Chicagoto develop quantum-enabled identifiers (Q-IDs) that will allow for the investigation of individual immune cells in real-time.
“Eventually these Q-IDs will be able to monitor thousands of immune cells, which will provide insights into inflammation in tumors and tissues and potentially lead to new therapies for chronic inflammation and cancer,” Maurer said.
Maurer also in 2024 received a $2.75 million grant from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to study qubits — the building blocks of quantum computing — made from proteins.
“This is a completely new class of qubits that will allow us a radically new approach to engineer quantum systems,” Maurer said.
Creating better quantum devices
But none of these innovations can happen without better, more powerful, faster and less expensive quantum devices. Whether by completely reimagining the architecture of quantum chips, unlocking a “new synthetic frontier” for creating quantum dots, finding a completely new, quantum path toward building superconductors or liberating the building blocks of quantum materials, UChicago is at the forefront of building the machines that will build the future.
Here are just a few of the quantum innovations that research by UChicago and its collaborators has enabled over the past year:
- A new diamond bonding technique to better integrate quantum and classical electronics
- Laser-written quantum bits to help scale quantum devices
- Combining trapped atom arrays and photonic devices to advance quantum computing
- Quantum optical antennae for more detailed measurements on the atomic level
- Unraveling the mysteries of copper-catalyzed nitrogen coupling
- Finding a new path for next-generation quantum processors
- Building qubits out of sound
Building the quantum workforce
Beyond research, UChicago is also driving STEM fluency, building the quantum workforce of tomorrow.
UChicago PME’s innovative science/arts lab the STAGE Center turns explanation into fun, bringing their suite of quantum mechanics-based card games to the public, most recently at a game night at Bowen High School in the South Chicago neighborhood.
Along with programs like the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s (UIUC) LabEscape, the night was designed to build community support and excitement for the massive quantum campus planned for the long-vacant US Steel South Works site. The campus represents hundreds of millions of dollars in investment from IBM, PsiQuantum and the Department of Defense and State of Illinois to Chicago’s South Side.
UChicago also brings quantum to the community through summer programs such as Quantum Quickstart, which brings ninth- and tenth-graders from across Illinois for a weeklong immersion in quantum science, and TeachQuantum, which teaches South Side schoolteachers how to bring this cutting-edge field into their classrooms.
UChicago is a powerful engine for innovation within Chicago’s — and the world’s — quantum ecosystem.
As the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology begins, UChicago will continue to drive impactful innovation alongside its partners.
