Assistant Professor Ravitej Uppu has been awarded $30,000 from the Office of the Vice President for Research's Early Career Scholars program for a project titled “Pushing the frontiers of spectroscopy with quantum entangled photons.”

The project aims to develop the core building blocks of a chip-scale multiphoton spectrometer that employs a quantum light source (entangled photon pairs) instead of a laser. While controlling the chip-scale design enables the researchers to enhance interaction strength between the light source and molecule or nanomaterial being probed, the quantum entanglement in the light source will allow overcoming the classical signal-to-noise ratio limitations faced by classical methods.

The Early Career Scholars funding will fund the project for a year to establish the feasibility of the approach and  support research assistantships of graduate and undergraduate students in the Quantum Light Control (QLiC!) Lab.

The goal of the OVPR Early Career Scholars program is to help tenure-track assistant professors develop a competitive proposal and secure an externally funded award. See this article to read more about the 2023 OVPR Early Career Scholars Awards.