News

Shuo Sun, Associate Fellow at JILA and Assistant Professor in the Department of Physics at the University of Colorado Boulder has been awarded a prestigious NSF CAREER Award for his research proposal, “Developing a High-Dimensional Photonic Quantum Register for the Quantum Internet.”

JILA, a joint institute of the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) hosted its inaugural workshop on recent technological and research advancements in quantum light from July 17 to 19, 2024. The conference was sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded JILA Physics Frontier Center (PFC), the CUbit Quantum Initiative, and laser company Toptica. 

The event invited speakers from various prestigious institutions, including Texas A&M University, the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Columbia University, Wake Forest University, Livermore National Lab, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Caltech, Oak Ridge National Lab, Cornell University, William & Mary, University College London, the University of Oregon, the University of Toronto, and the University of Virginia, along with multiple representatives from NIST.

JILA Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder professor Shuo Sun recently became the science advisor for Boulder-based quantum technology company Icarus Quantum. Since its inception in 2020, Icarus Quantum has focused on developing on-demand single- and entangled-photon generators for the future quantum internet network. As Sun's research focuses on quantum information science using photons (light particles) as a means to transmit information, he will no doubt be a valuable asset to this Colorado start-up. 

JILA's Postdoc Group, an internal organization supporting postdoctoral researchers within JILA, held a career panel titled: "Insights for Applying for Faculty Positions as a Postdoctoral Researcher." The panel featured three JILA Fellows: Margaret Murnane, Shuo Sun, and Graeme Smith, and J. Curtis Beimborn II, the Director of the W.M. Keck Laboratory at JILA, who recently accepted a faculty position on the East Coast. 

Associate JILA Fellow and University of Colorado Boulder Assistant Professor Dr. Shuo Sun has been awarded a 2023 Sloan Research Fellowship. Along with 124 other winners, Sun's work has been recognized as being of the highest quality. 

World Quantum Day is a big deal for JILA. With around 75% of JILA Fellows researching quantum phenomena, it's no surprise that this institute is a world leader in this field. “Quantum research enables so many applications, varying from new generations of computers, secure communications, to ultraprecise clocks and sensors,” explained JILA Fellow Shuo Sun.  “In addition, quantum research will drive the advances of many fields such as material science, chemistry, nanoscience, etc., which will likely drive new technology breakthroughs that we cannot predict yet. Finally, the research in quantum allows us to probe the fundamental questions in physics, which is really fascinating to me.” Quantum physics has had a long history at JILA, becoming popular thanks to Einstein's work in the 1920s. Several JILA Fellows, including JILA and NIST Fellow Jun Ye, continue to build off of Einstein's original work. 

JILA Fellow Shuo Sun has been awarded an NSF Quantum Interconnect Challenges for Transformational Advances in Quantum Systems (QuIC-TAQS) grant. The grant's purpose is to support interdisciplinary teams exploring innovative and unique ideas for applying and developing quantum engineering, computing, and science in the specific area of quantum interconnection. Quantum interconnection is a part of quantum communications.

Shuo Sun, assistant professor of physics at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Kyle Luh, assistant professor of mathematics, and their fellow recipients will receive $5,000 in seed money for the 2021-22 academic year to enhance their research as they launch their academic careers. Each recipient’s institution matches the award, and winners may use the $10,000 grants to purchase equipment, continue research or travel to professional meetings.

Two physicists at the University of Colorado Boulder and Colorado School of Mines have received a $1 million grant from the W.M. Keck Foundation to develop a first-of-its-kind quantum simulator that could be used to develop novel materials and, in the future, lead to the development of a high-performance quantum computer.

Shuo has been selected as one of 35 awardees in the 2021 Ralph E. Powe Junior Faculty Enhancement Awards. In 2021, this award received 156 applications from 89 ORAU member institutions, with each member institution can nominate only up to 2 applications.

See also news from CU College of Arts and Science: Mathematician, physicist win junior faculty development award.

Shuo was selected as an Outstanding Reviewer for the journal "Quantum Science and Technology" for 2020, in recognition of the high quality and timeliness of his reviews during the year. The full list of the awardees is here.

Yuan is among 15 other graduate students in the US who received the NSF QISE-NET TRIPLET Award in Spring 2021. The full list of the cohort is here. Congrats Yuan!

Shuo is among over 30 scientists and engineers from academia, industry, and national laboratories to identify the present roadblocks that need to be overcome to create functioning quantum interconnects across the necessary range of quantum information technology platforms. The consensus of the participants is that there are concepts and technologies whose development warrants a large, synergistic, and convergent effort involving a range of expertise on a national scale. This roadmap paper summarizes the consensus and highlight the exciting future directions for quantum interconnects. 

We published a new book chapter! In this book chapter, we reviewed the field of quantum nonlinear optics enabled by semiconductor quantum dots in collaboration with Prof. Kai Mueller from TU Munich. Check it out here.

We have our first paper published on PRL! In this paper, we presents a new scheme for deterministic generation of loss-tolerant encoded photonic states. If you are interested in optical quantum computing or long-distance quantum communication, you should definitely check it out here. 

Shuo is one of the two awardees for the second price of the 2020 Rising Stars of Light hosted by the Nature partner journal "Light: Science & Applications". 

JILA has a new associate fellow. Meet Shuo Sun.

Frankie Ngan joins our group as a graduate student. Frankie is an upcoming first-year graduate student in Physics. Welcome Frankie!

We welcome our first graduate student, Yuan Zhan! Yuan is a first-year graduate student in Physics. He obtained his Bachelor degree in Peking University, China.

Shuo has accepted the faculty position at JILA and CU Boulder Physics. He will officially join JILA and CU in August 2020. Meanwhile, he will wrap up his ongoing research at Stanford University.