IQC researcher receives funding from Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI)

Friday, January 10, 2014

Christopher Wilson receives John R. Evans Leaders Fund grant

Christopher Wilson, IQC faculty member and professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering, receives $50,000 in funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) as part of the John R. Evans Leaders Fund. The grant, designed to help universities attract and retain top research talent, supports Wilson’s work in engineered quantum systems.

Wilson aims to engineer future communication devices by using a conventional frequency range in novel ways - using superconducting qubits to generate quantum microwave states. Superconducting qubits are engineered electronic circuits that exhibit quantum properties and are a promising approach to scalable quantum computing. Microwaves are used in modern communications systems – cellular and Wi-Fi networks for example. Quantum microwaves display nonclassical behaviour such as entanglement.

The ability to generate and detect quantum microwaves in an engineered superconducting architecture opens the possibility to establish large-scale quantum communications networks and to the distribution of quantum information within a quantum processor. Wilson and his team are exploring how quantum microwaves can be used as a resource for future quantum communications networks.

A relatively new member of IQC, Wilson is currently setting up his lab in the Mike and Ophelia Lazaridis Quantum-Nano Centre.