UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is investing £6m in seventeen new projects focused on quantum technology, as well as support of its existing Quantum Technologies for Fundamental Physics programme.
This programme is jointly funded by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.
The grants were established to drive innovation in quantum tech and to explore its utility in addressing long-standing questions about the universe.
Professor Grahame Blair, STFC executive director of programmes, said: “This new cohort of projects should make a valuable contribution to our understanding of the universe using cutting-edge quantum tech such as quantum computing, imaging, sensing and simulations.
“The new grants continue to support the UK research community in exploring the diversity of quantum technology applications for fundamental science, from neutrino mass studies to searches for violations of fundamental symmetries of nature.”
Some of the topics the projects will focus on are: the ability to control the quantum nature of light; generating and studying quantum behaviour at a mass-scale to act as a powerful lens; testing the properties of antimatter; and using (anti)matter-wave interferometry with highly-excited states of positronium to measure the effects of the Earth’s gravitational field.
