Faraon Receives Air Force Grant

Andrei Faraon (BS '04) has been awarded a research grant from the Air Force's Young Investigator Research Program. The award, given to scientists and engineers who have received their PhD in the last five years, is intended to foster creative research in science and engineering areas of interest to the Air Force.

Faraon builds devices that will interface atoms and photons (the elementary particles of light) at the quantum level. In the future, such devices could be used to interconnect future quantum computers and to create optical quantum memories, an interface between light and matter allowing for storage and retrieval of photonic quantum information. These quantum memories can operate in telecommunications wavelengths that can be directly coupled to the optical fibers that wire the Internet. Work on these devices will be funded by the Air Force grant.

"I received this award with great enthusiasm because we can start working on quantum technologies that can be directly interfaced with the current Internet infrastructure, allowing for more secure communications." says Faraon. "Quantum memories will play a critical role in realizing quantum networks that will be used to send information over the Internet with absolute security."

Faraon joined the Caltech faculty in 2012 as an assistant professor of applied physics and material science.