UMass Awarded $1.5 Million by DOE to Develop Quantum Technologies

(LowellSun) UMass Lowell’s assistant professor Archana Kamal, in the Department of Physics and Applied Physics, has been awarded $1.8 million in grants from the U.S. Department of Energy. Kamal will use the funding to expand her research into the emerging field of quantum information science
The first of the two grants, worth $1.5 million, was awarded through the Department of Energy’s Basic Energy Sciences program. It will enable Kamal, who is leading the project, to develop quantum technologies that can form the foundation for the next generation of computing processing. Kamal is partnering with researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology Boulder Laboratories, the release states.
The QIS research is expected to lead to new medical, national security and scientific applications and future quantum computers will eventually be able to solve large, highly complex problems beyond the capacity of today’s most powerful supercomputers, according to the release.
The second grant, worth approximately $360,000, was awarded through the Department of Energy’s High-Energy Physics program. It was given to Kamal and UMass Lowell Assistant Professor Nishant Agarwal, who leads the project, along with collaborators from Penn State and UMass Boston. The aim of the program is to extend open quantum systems framework for tackling foundation-based questions about origins of the early universe, as well as apply quantum-information-theoretic tools for probing exotic gravitational phenomenon.