Photon detector made at IQC launches into space aboard SpaceX flight to find home on the International Space Station
Dr. Thomas Jennewein, IQC affiliate and professor in Waterloo’s Department of Physics and Astronomy leads the Quantum Photonics lab at IQC, which designed and implemented the module.
By Naomi Grosman
A photon detector module designed, assembled and programmed at University of Waterloo’s Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) launched into space earlier this week aboard a SpaceX flight and will soon arrive at the International Space Station. It will be used for quantum entanglement science experiments as part of the Space Entanglement and Annealing Quantum Experiment (SEAQUE) implemented by an international consortium under leadership from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Jennewein and Paul Godin, IQC’s senior technologist at the Quantum Photonics lab worked with four other scientists, Nigar Sultana (PhD ’19), Nouralhoda Bayat (BSc ’22), Joanna Krynski (MSc ’22) and Zhenwen Wang over the last three years to build the module.
The project included building four single-photon detectors, multi-channel coincidence detection as well as a microcontroller for operation and photon counting, all in a very compact format.
"It will be very exciting to follow the results from the SEAQUE experiments conducted in space. We know from lab tests that laser annealing of radiated detectors is very effective, but the space environment brings some interesting challenges due to the high laser powers. The SEAQUE mission will be the first to verify this method on a device with small size and power, in the context of quantum entanglement experiments."
- Dr. Thomas Jennewein, IQC affiliate and adjunct professor in Waterloo’s Department of Physics and Astronomy
The Waterloo team acknowledges funding from the Canadian Space Agency(CSA);(FAST program) which supports their work at IQC. Jennewein says this project is in line with CSA’s push to advance technologies for future quantum communication satellites.