MIRAQLS: EU | CAN project
Mid-infrared Quantum Technologies for Sensing

MIRAQLS of quantum sensing

MIRAQLS project is an international scientific collaboration between Europe and Canada aimed to advance novel quantum technologies, running since October 2022. The project is co-funded by the EU Quantum Flagship under Horizon Europe, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). MIRAQLS is co-sponsored by the State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (SERI) of Switzerland and by the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) fund of the United Kingdom. With a total funding above 3 million €, the MIRAQLS is one of the three projects that was funded by the European-Canadian partnership during the 2021-2022 competition.

The goal of MIRAQLS is to increase our ability to sense minute changes in the environment around us using mid-infrared (MIR) light (wavelength range from 2 μm to 15 μm). Optical sensors operating in this band are essential for a wide range of applications owing to the overlap with unique molecular absorption signatures. MIRAQLS aims to tackle some of the biggest challenges that have hampered the development of MIR quantum technologies by understanding how to control the quantum properties of light and matter at the fundamental limits of their interaction. 

MIRAQLS team includes researchers from nine universities: Polytechnique Montréal and the University of Toronto (Canada); Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain); Universität Paderborn (Germany); Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca (Italy); École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (Switzerland); and the University of Glasgow and the University of Warwick (United Kingdom). The consortium also includes three industrial partners - Menhir Photonics, IRsweep, and Space-Tech (GmbH). The team's expertise spans synergistic subject areas of quantum photonics, materials science, optoelectronic component development, MIR laser science and spectroscopy, biophotonics, photonic inverse design, quantum optics theory, quantum information science, and quantum technologies.

The official launch date of the MIRAQLS project coincided with the announcement of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics, which was awarded to Professors Alain Aspect, John Clauser, and Anton Zeilinger for “their experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell’s inequalities and paving the way for quantum information science”. Our team is excited to exploit entanglement and superposition principles in the mid-infrared frequency range to build better optical sensors of tomorrow, poised for a direct positive impact on the well-being of modern society. Some applications include increased accuracy of medical imaging for early personalized diagnostics in medicine, comprehensive and real-time detection of pollutants in the atmosphere, drug discovery, improved manufacturing yields via better quality control, and many more.