Fermilab launches quantum information school, using subatomic principles for groundbreaking technology

Forget about summer school as a time to make up a flunked course, or get a requirement out of the way. For a group of students at Fermilab, summer school means learning about one of the most cutting-edge technologies on the planet: quantum information science.

On the grounds of the huge underground particle accelerator in Batavia, students Monday began learning about the obstacles and possibilities of applying subatomic principles to advanced technology.

About 150 students, including scientists, researchers, college students and industry professionals, are spending two weeks at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory to learn theory and practical skills. They’ll focus especially on superconducting quantum platforms for computing and sensing.

The study of quantum mechanics already has helped lead to the invention of transistors, lasers and magnetic resonance imaging, or MRIs, in health care.

Now, the first U.S. Quantum Information Science School aims to educate the next generation of researchers on quantum device design and fabrication; quantum computing algorithms; quantum sensing; and cryogenics, the behavior of materials at very low temperatures.

Only half of all applicants were accepted. The students hope to apply what they learn to their future work.

Leticia Madureira, a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, hopes to develop new algorithms for quantum computer simulations to analyze molecular systems.

Anastasia Simonova, a student at the University of California at Berkeley, plans to study quantum hardware in graduate school. “I’m very excited to be here,” she said. “I’m pretty new to this field.”

Most people are pretty new to quantum information science, which has mostly developed in the past couple of decades.

The field attempts to take advantage of the unique and perplexing properties of subatomic particles, which act as both particles and waves, and which seemingly act on each other instantaneously, though they are far apart — a phenomenon that Albert Einstein called “spooky.”

While classical computing uses bits of information containing either a 1 or 0, quantum bits — or qubits — are like a coin flipped in the air — they contain, in effect, both a 1 and 0, to be determined once it’s observed.

That should make quantum computing able to handle exponentially more complex problems, like encryption for national security or predicting the structure of new medicines.

But scientists must clear many hurdles before large-scale quantum computing and networking are practical.

To take on that challenge, Fermilab is part of the Chicago Quantum Exchange — a collaboration also involving the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Wisconsin.

The school draws on experts in academia and the private sector, and from five U.S. Department of Energy national labs, including Fermilab and its Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center, where students will have access to qubits, quantum devices and platforms.

The program seeks to create a quantum ecosystem and workforce to lay the groundwork for the developing industry.

U.S. Reps. Bill Foster and Sean Casten, both suburban Democrats, spoke at the opening of the school, which is federally funded.

“It’s going to be a wild ride,” Foster, a former Fermilab scientist, told the students. “Thank you for jumping on this roller coaster.”