The Center for Molecular Quantum Transduction (CMQT) named three group members to the role of thrust leader at its January meeting. CMQT is an Energy Frontier Research Center (EFRC) funded by the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Basic Energy Sciences. CMQT is a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary team of chemists, physicists, and materials scientists. The thrust leaders facilitate vital interactions between the research teams by collecting and reporting on updates from their assigned groups at monthly meetings.
Since its launch in 2020, CMQT has focused on refining quantum-to-quantum transduction. This is an essential element of quantum information science, allowing for the coherent exchange of information between quantum systems. Quantum transduction has major implications for both the US and global economies.
Paige Brown, a doctoral candidate in chemistry and member of the Wasielewski Group at Northwestern, will serve as the leader of research thrust 1—Localized Molecular Quantum-to-Quantum Transduction. The goal of this thrust is to develop new mechanisms and strategies to coherently couple localized molecular degrees of freedom (DOFs) and thus lay the foundation for molecular quantum-to-quantum transduction.
“I'm happy to be named a thrust leader because it gives me the chance to interact more with the different groups in CMQT and to gain a better understanding of their work,” said Brown. “During my tenure as thrust leader I hope that I’ll be able to clearly and concisely communicate the interesting results of different groups and provide my own insight to these complex research problems when appropriate.”
Donley Cormode, a doctoral candidate in physics at the Ohio State University where she is part of the Johnston-Halperin Group, will lead research thrust 2–Distributed Molecular Quantum-to-Quantum Transduction. The goal of this thrust is to demonstrate quantum transduction within distributed molecular quantum systems.
“Being thrust leader is a great opportunity for me to talk to my fellow researchers and understand their work. The center is full of excellent scientists and I love the excuse to learn more about what they're doing,” said Cormode, who had been preparing for the role during the past year. “I was pleased to be named,” she noted.
Connor Terry Weatherly, doctoral candidate in chemistry, who is in the Weiss and Tempelaar groups at Northwestern, will lead research thrust 3, which incorporates the molecular systems established in thrusts 1 and 2, ultimately to probe quantum aspects of energy-important light-harvesting processes, such as natural and artificial photosynthesis.
“CMQT provides an excellent platform for collaboration between some of the top chemistry, material-science, and physics research groups in the US in the fields of quantum transduction and quantum information science–areas of significant interest to me. Being a thrust leader allows me to be more involved in the center, learn and present on all of the cool research going on in it, and be able to communicate and make connections with the many researchers and professors involved,” said Weatherly.
Brown, Cormode, and Weatherly shared their first reports of 2023 at the CMQT January meeting. They replaced the prior thrust leaders: Frank Qiu and Iqbal Utama of the Wasielewski and Hersam research groups at Northwestern University, and Kennedy McCone of the Long Group at the University of California, Berkely.
CMQT is a research center within the Institute for Sustainability and Energy at Northwestern.