Zhong Quantum Lab

1. Designer atomic qubits

Individually addressable, long-lived qubits with tailorable spin, optical and electrical properties are fundamental to building future quantum machines. We use an atom-up approach for atomic precision control of the creation, design, and manipulation of individual qubit in solids. We are particularly interested in wafer-scale manufacturing of atomic qubits that will enable next generation quantum systems.

T. Zhong and Ph. Goldner, "Emerging rare-earth doped material platforms for quantum nanophotonics," Nanophotonics 8, 2003-2015, (2019).
S. Gupta, Y. Huang, S. Liu, Y. Pei, N. Tomm, Q. Gao, S-L. Yang, R. Warburton, T. Zhong, "Dual epitaxial telecom spin-photon interfaces with correlated long-lived coherence," Nature Communications 16, 9814 (2025).
E. Poem, S. Gupta, I. Morris, K. Klink, L. Singh, T. Zhong, J. N. Becker, and O. Firstenberg, "Transition metal ion ensembles in crystals as solid-state coherent spin-photon interfaces: The case of nickel in magnesium oxide," PRX Quantum 4, 030329 (2023).

2. Quantum network and interconnect

Quantum Internet is made of nodes where entanglement is generated, stored and processed, and quantum links for transferring entanglement between those nodes. We focuses on developing enabling technologies for efficient light-matter interface at individual quantum nodes and high-throughput quantum communication links. We collaborate with Argonne-Fermilab National Lab quantum testbed to develop telecom quantum nodes and photonic teleportation links. See the news here.

H.-K. Lau, Hong Qiao, Aashish. A. Clerk, Tian Zhong, "Efficient in-situ generation of photon-memory entanglement in a nonlinear cavity," Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 053602 (2025).
T. Zhong, et al. "Nanophotonic quantum memory with optically controlled retrieval" Science 357 1392-1395 (2017).
T. Zhong, J. Kindem, E. Miyazono, and A. Faraon, “Nanophotonic coherent light-matter interface based on Rare-Earth doped crystals,” Nature Communications 6, 8206 (2015).
T. Zhong, J. M. Kindem, J. Rochman, and A. Faraon,"On-chip storage of broadband photonic qubits in a cavity-protected rare-earth ensemble," Nature Communications 8, 14107 (2017).

3. Hybrid quantum systems for transduction and interconnect

We are exploring new material and device platforms in which spin qubits interact with variety of other quantum degrees of freedoms including superconducting circuits, optical photons, phonons and magnons. Such hybrid quantum systems could find key applications in quantum computing, quantum simulations and quantum sensing. The transduction modalities we study include: (1) Magneto-optic transduction, (2) Rare-earth charge coupling, (3) Hybrid Rb atom erbium ion quantum interface.

Leonardo S. Franca, Shaan Doshi, Haitao Zhang, Tian Zhong, "All-optical control of charge-trapping defects in rare-earth doped oxides," Nanophotonics, 2024.0635 (2025). See the news: Physics.org; Quantum Insider; Science Daily; SciTech Daily

4. Quantum information and quantum optics

We theoretically and experimentally investigate new paradigms of quantum entanglement generation, purification, and detection in quantum networks, and quantum information transfer in optical, microwave or hybrid systems. Current projects include quantum network simulator (collaboration with Dr. Martin Suchara, at Microsoft), in-situ spin-photon entanglement generation (collaboration with Prof. Kero Lau, Prof. Aash Clerk), noise management protocols in a quantum network. Recent and select prior works include:

Allen Zang, Xinan Chen, Eric Chitamber, Martin Suchara, Tian Zhong, “No-go Theorems for Universal Entanglement Purification,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 134, 190803 (2025) Editor's suggestion. see the news: Physics.org; Science magzine; EurekAlert, and many more.
Allen Zang, Alexandar Kolar, Alvin Gonzales, Joaquin Chung, Stephen K. Gray, Rajkumar Kettimuthu, Tian Zhong, Zain H. Saleem, “Quantum Advantage in Distributed Sensing with Noisy Quantum Networks,” arXiv:2409.17089 (2024).
X. Wu, A. Kolar, J. Chung, D. Jin, T. Zhong, R. Kettimuthu, M. Suchara, "SeQUeNCe: a customizable discrete-event simulator of quantum networks" Quantum Science and Technology 6, 045027 (2021).
Z. Xie, T. Zhong, X. Xu, J. Liang, Y. Gong, J. Shapiro, F. Wong, and C. W. Wong, “Harnessing high-dimensional hyperentanglement through a biphoton frequency comb,” Nature Photonics 9, 536-542 (2015). News and media: Nature photonics; Phys.org; EurekAlert; ScienceDaily
T. Zhong, H. Zhou, R. D. Horansky, C. Lee, V. B. Verma, A. E. Lita, A. Restelli, J. C. Bienfang, R. P. Mirin, T. Gerrits, S. W. Nam, F. Marsili, M. D. Shaw, Z. Zhang, L. Wang, D. Englund, G. W. Wornell, J. H. Shapiro, and F. N. C. Wong, “Photon efficient high-dimensional quantum key distribution,” New J. Phys. 17, 022002 Fast Track Communications (2015). Video abstract