Official opening of Center for Hybrid Quantum Networks (Hy-Q)

From left: Prof. John Renner Hansen, Dean of the Faculty of Sciences. Prof. Jan W. Thomsen, Head of Department at Niels Bohr Institute. Prof. Liselotte Højgaard, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Danish National Research Foundation. Prof. Peter Lodahl, Head of Quantum Photonics and the Center for Hybrid Quantum Networks (Hy-Q). Prof. Henrik C. Wegener, Rector of Copenhagen University.
 

The center is a result of a unique research collaboration between three well-established research groups at the Niels Bohr Institute, headed by Peter Lodahl, Anders Sørensen and Albert Schliesser. Hy-Q will merge research expertise within experimental quantum optics, theoretical quantum optics and quantum optomechanics at a level not seen worldwide before.

The ultimate vision: A Quantum Internet

The outstanding challenge in quantum physics is to scale small quantum systems into large and complex architectures. This is the essential challenge Hy-Q wants to address. The long-term perspective of the research is to enable large scale processing of quantum information over global distances: ultimately a quantum internet.

Professor Peter Lodahl, Head of the new Center for Hybrid Quantum Networks (Hy-Q).

Hy-Q – a unique platform for collaboration worldwide

At the opening ceremony Professor Peter Lodahl, Director of Hy-Q expressed his appreciation and how honoured he is to be heading such an ambitious commitment: “it’s a daily great pleasure to work with so many talented young researchers, to guide them in their research and professional development, and to see them create new research results. To foster an excellent research environment is an incredible complex achievement and calls for great visions, solid infrastructure and technical support, along with a group of hard-working talented researchers with great ambitions and curiosity. And all of it should be within a nice and friendly atmosphere. Requirements that are entirely full-filled at the Niels Bohr Institute”

Professor Stephanie Wehner from Delft University of Technology and head of Quantum Internet Alliance was invited as speaker and she underlined the vision and the perspectives behind the great European effort to create a ground-breaking new Quantum Internet: a Quantum Internet will potentially be able to transform communication of the future. The Niels Bohr Institute is world-leading within the field of single-photon physics and technology, and in developing protocols for implementing this technology towards a Quantum Internet. The Quantum Internet Alliance is a unique consortium of world-leading research groups, who will join forces in close collaboration to achieve one of the ultimate and significant goals of todays technology”

Other speakers at the opening event were Liselotte Højgaard, Chair of the Board of the Danish National Research Foundation; Henrik C. Wegener, Rector at University of Copenhagen; John Renner Hansen, Dean at the Faculty of Science; Jan W. Thomsen, Head at the Niels Bohr Institute. Several of the speakers emphasized with enthusiasm the unique platform the Niels Bohr Institute now will be hosting for major breakthroughs within quantum technologies. Breakthroughs that fundamentally will change our world and the future performance of global communication.

The opening of the new Center of Excellence took place in the beautiful Festauditorium at the Faculty' of Science in Copenhagen.

A good start

In relation with the opening of Hy-Q the Danish National Research Foundation has generously donated and arranged a symposium at the Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters. The symposium will take place the next two days and as well as the centers young team of researchers, there is world-leading international speakers invited for two days of presentations and discussions about the quantum internet of the future.

It is the ambition of Hy-Q to be a world-leading center within the field of quantum optics and quantum technologies, and with the aim to attract the most talented international researchers. A century ago Copenhagen was the heart of the conceptual development of quantum physics. Hy-Q stands on the shoulders of this achievement and tradition, and could play a key-role in the second quantum revolution of today, where the peculiar quantum experiments happening every day in the labs at Blegdamsvej are put to use in real-world applications. This transformation of fundamental discoveries in to new technology is the long-term perspective of Hy-Q.

Pictures from the  Royal Danish Academy of Science and Letters: Hy-Q management: Prof. Albert Schliesser, prof. Peter Lodahl, prof. Anders S. Sørensen and Centercoordinator Lisbeth Andreassen.