Virginia Tech researcher examines theoretical quantum information sciences

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research 1:26 Virginia Tech researcher examines theoretical quantum information sciences

By:

Luke Hayes

14 Nov 2024 365

Sophia Economou, the T. Marshall Hahn Chair in Physics, is an expert in quantum information sciences and directs of the Center for Quantum Information Science and Engineering. Her work has led to several breakthroughs in the field, including the co-development of the first adaptive quantum simulation algorithm to solve classically intractable problems in a mostly autonomous way and pioneering the idea of efficiently generating photonic resource states from matter qubits. She is one of four researchers honored with a Jacob A. Lutz III Award for Eminent Scholars.

I like problem solving, but also, I have learned to enjoy the part where you haven't figured things out yet, and there's this excitement that I'm about to figure something out. So I'm the founding director of the Quantum Information Science and Engineering Center. My group works on quantum information science, and this includes quantum computing, and the idea is to understand and exploit the laws of quantum mechanics in order to help build new types of technologies in the realm of information. Quantum theory started as a way to explain the microscopic world in physics. People started to understand that you can use these quantum mechanics and quantum theory as a way to design and hopefully build in the real world new types of computers that can solve specific problems much faster than what we can do with our existing computers. We're excited that we have people from physics, chemistry, computer science, working together, to try to come up with the best possible algorithms. We are also interested in the physical layer and trying to understand how do we control quantum systems as well as we can, and much better than what has been done up to now. This, I think is a new era of quantum with Virginia Tech, where many of the interdisciplinary groups have come together in the same space. And I think a lot of probably our best work is still to happen, and it will happen here.