Four Q-NEXT scientists elected American Physical Society fellows
The American Physical Society (APS) Fellowship is an honor signifying recognition by one’s professional peers, awarded each year to less than one-half of 1% of APS members.
Each nominee is evaluated by the fellowship committee of the appropriate APS division, topical group or forum. After review by the APS fellowship committee, the successful candidates are elected by the APS Council.
This year, APS awarded fellowships to four scientists affiliated with Q-NEXT, a U.S. Department of Energy National Quantum Information Science Research Center:
Aashish Clerk
Aashish Clerk of Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago was elected for fundamental contributions to the theory of quantum optomechanical systems, quantum dissipation engineering and other areas of quantum optics.
Liang Jiang
Liang Jiang of the University of Chicago was elected for innovative theoretical contributions opening new directions in quantum communication, computation and metrology.
Benjamin Lev
Benjamin Lev of Stanford University was elected for groundbreaking experiments on quantum gases of lanthanide atoms with large magnetic dipole moments, theoretically proposing and experimentally demonstrating multimode cavity QED for many-body physics, and the demonstration of novel scanning quantum gas imaging of quantum materials.
Monika Schleier-Smith
Monika Schleier-Smith of Stanford University was elected for pioneering experimental and theoretical contributions to quantum measurements and quantum simulation with ultracold atoms.
David Awschalom, Q-NEXT Chief Science Officer and the Liew Family Professor of Quantum Engineering and Physics at the University of Chicago, received the prestigious Falling Walls Science Breakthrough of the Year in Physical Sciences for a pioneering body of work that broke the wall between quantum technology, molecules, and proteins. Read More
A team led by Jacob Covey, who is part of Q-NEXT and is an Associate Professor at the University of Chicago, laid out a new concept that could turn helium’s light weight into the next generation of quantum computers. The design relies on helium-3, an isotope with different quantum properties than the helium-4 used to cool MRI machines and fill party balloons. Once built, the computer could use high-powered lasers as “optical tweezers” to capture and control individual atoms of helium. Read More
Researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign who are part of Q-NEXT are engineering material systems that support quantum technology. Chris Anderson and his team are developing materials for quantum transduction — the conversion of quantum information from one form to another. Elizabeth Goldschmidt, Daniel Shoemaker, and colleagues are developing quantum memory technology that stores quantum information for extended periods of time. Read More
Scientists have created a silicon chip that can detect the electrical behavior of very small materials by using very high-frequency waves. The chip is made only from silicon and other non-superconducting materials and still performs very well when cooled from room temperature down to about 4 Kelvin. Read More
Scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Intel have found that a simple electrical pulse can quickly push a quantum dot qubit out of a latched state and return it to its starting condition with very high reliability. Read More
SeQUeNCe, a free, open-source software developed by Argonne scientists with Q-NEXT support, is one of seven Argonne projects that received a 2026 R&D 100 Award. The SeQUeNCe software lets researchers test how quantum networks might work before building them. Read More
Researchers at Argonne and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign demonstrate a method for generating stable ripples in magnetic materials called magnons. The work opens avenues for information processing in microelectronics and quantum devices. Read More
Researchers mapped how electron irradiation makes defects inside diamond, finding that creating more vacancies does not always produce more NV centers. Too many vacancies can form unwanted defects. This result can inform advances in quantum sensing. Read More
At SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Q-NEXT collaborator Shannon Harvey develops quantum dots — a mass-producible type of qubit. Driven by curiosity about nature and how things work, Harvey draws on her facility for working at the nanoscale. Read More