This page is not finalised: some grant entries are missing and totals will increase substantially.
This page describes the several major Oxford-wide quantum research themes, and some of the larger grants that support the work. The grants listed here total over £12 million; there are also numerous smaller grants, and we estimate that currently Oxford holds active or about-to-start grants for quantum research that total well over £20 million. Funders range from public sources such as EPSRC and the EU, through to private investors and technology companies.
Click the name of a Theme to jump to its section below:
Quantum optics for metrology, communication and computing
Theme Overview:
Oxford researchers are exploring many different photonics technologies, and Oxford has one of the UK's largest efforts to harness the potential for quantum enhancement of measurement and sensing, communication networks and information processing.
It may not be surprising that controlling light at the quantum level can enhance metrology or communications, but remarkably there are even ways to exploit light as the information processing medium in a computation. Recently an Oxford team demonstrated this for the problem of 'boson sampling', and a near future extension of that work may give us the first unequivocal demonstration of a quantum calculation exceeding the ability of the best classical computers.
Oxford teams involved in this Theme: XXX
Total current grant funding related to this theme is XXX. Major enabling grants are as follows:
Artist's impression "Quantum Computer Core" (c) Richard Kail fineartamerica.com.
Grant title: Entangled Photonic States
Funder: EPSRC
Total funds: £1.1 million.
Dates: 01 May 10 - 31 May 14
Departments: Physics
Principal Investigator: Ian Walmsley
Grant title: Quantum States out of light
Funder: EPSRC
Total funds: £1.5 million
Dates: 20 May 13 - 19 May 18
Departments: Physics
Principal Investigator: Ian Walmsley
Other currently active grants, individually less that £500K, provide staff, student, travel and conference support.
Total from smaller grants: £XXM
Engineering quantum states at the interface of light and matter
Light, or more generally electromagnetic radiation from the visible through to microwave and radio frequencies, is perhaps our most powerful tool in controlling matter at the quantum level. From atoms in cavities and electromagnetic traps, to 'defects' in diamond, and on to optoelectronic devices switched by light, Oxford has a diverse range of research in progress. Ultrafast pulses are also a vital tool in understanding quantum coherence in natural and biomimetic molecular structures.
The quantum state of even a simple two-level system is vastly more complex than one might expect from our every day 'classical' intuition. We engage with this complexity whether we are studying energy transfer in molecules the instant after light is absorbed, or seeking to use atoms and atom-like systems to store information.
Oxford teams involved in this Theme: XXX
Total current grant funding related to this theme is XXX. Major enabling grants are as follows:
Title: Wavelength tunable Advanced Single Photon Sources (WASPS)
Funder: European Commission (FP7)
Total funds: £1.7m
Department: Materials
Principal Investigator: Jason Smith
External Collaborators: Oliver Williams (Cardiff), John Rarity and Jeremy O'Brien (Bristol), Christoph Becher (Saarlandes), David Hunger (LMU Muenchen) and Alexia Auffeves (CNRS Grenoble)
Grant title: Quantum optics with ultracold quantum gases
Funder: EPSRC
Total funds: £886k
Dates: 31 Mar 11 - 30 Mar 16
Departments: Physics
Principal Investigator: Igor Mekhov
Other currently active grants, individually less that £500K, provide staff, student, travel and conference support.
Total from smaller grants: £XXM
Low temperature atomic, molecular and superconducting devices
Theme Overview:
Many quantum systems are best controlled and exploited by reducing the temperature of the environment to a very low level. This increases the crucial coherence time -- the time for which a quantum state remains pure and therefore useful in quantum-enhanced technologies.
The temperatures required vary: when we store quantum information in nuclear spins associated with phosphor donor atoms in silicon, or in atoms held in an electromagnetic vacuum trap, then even room temperature is possible -- cooling with liquid gasses (nitrogen or helium) will improve performance. However when we use superconducting quantum bits, or we control phonons in nanotubes, it is necessary to use extremely low temperatures -- within a fraction of a degree of absolute zero.
Oxford teams involved in this Theme: XXX
Total current grant funding related to this theme is XXX. Major enabling grants are as follows:
Controlling a quantum system at ultra-low temperature in an Oxford Instrument's dilution fridge.
Grant title: Molecular Quantum Nanodevices
Funder: EPSRC
Total funds: ££1.2M
Dates: 1 Aug 2012 - 31 Jul 2017
Departments: Materials, Physics, Chemistry
Principal Investigator: Andrew Briggs
Co-investigators: Anderson, Ardavan, Benjamin, Giustino, Morton, Porfyrakis and Warner
Grant title:
Funder:
Total funds: £X million.
Dates:
Departments:
Principal Investigator:
External collaborators:
Other currently active grants, individually less that £500K, provide staff, student, travel and conference support.
Total from smaller grants: £XXM
Quantum materials for photovoltaics, superconductors and exotic magnetic systems
Theme Overview:
This Theme includes a broad range of research where unusual or desirable properties of materials are due to the particular quantum properties of the constituents. Several experimental teams in the Physics Department look at a range of phenomena including multiferroics, molecular magnets and superconductivity. Meanwhile tensor network theory is used to understand both these effects and broader instances of complexity. The Materials Modelling Laboratory uses intensive numerical to predict materials properties and so aid the search for better systems such as photovoltaics (light harvesters).
Groups involved: Radaelli, Ardavan, [several others] (Physics), Giustino (Materials), Jaksch (Physics)
Total value of research grants supporting this Theme: £XXM
Largest grants include the following:
Illustration of a the results of a density functional calculation.
Grant title: Tensor Network Theory for strongly correlated quantum systems
Funder: EPSRC
Total funds: £926,000
Dates: 1 Jul 2013 to 31 Jun 2018
Departments: Physics
Principal Investigator: Dieter Jaksch
External collaborators: XXX
Grant title: Frontiers in Quantum Materials Control: High temperature superconductors
Funder: Europe (ERC)
Total funds: €2.3 (specific to Oxford)
Dates: 6 years from 2013
Departments: Physics
Principal Investigator: Dieter Jaksch
External collaborators: University of Hamburg, the École Polytechnique and the University of Geneva.
Grant title: New concepts in multiferroics and magnetroelectrics
Funder: EPSRC
Total funds: £646,400
Dates: 01 Dec 2011 to 31 Mar 2015
Departments: Physics
Principal Investigator: Paolo Radaelli
External collaborators: XXX
Grant title: Emergent phenomena in novel correlated materials
Funder: EPSRC
Total funds: £XX to Oxford of £1.2M
Dates: 01 Mar 2011 to 31 May 2019
Departments: Physics
Principal Investigator: Amalia Coldea (Physics)
External collaborators: Imperial, Liverpool, Nijmegen, NRL (US)
Grant title: XXXX
Funder: XXXX
Total funds: XXX
Dates: XXXX
Departments: Physics
Principal Investigator:
External collaborators: XXX
Other currently active grants, individually less that £500k, provide staff, student, travel and conference support.
Total from smaller grants: £XXM
New Frontiers: from Quantum Mathematics to Quantum Biology
Theme Overview:
Several Oxford groups are involved in pushing the frontiers of quantum science, investigating the overlap with other fields including maths and biology.
The quantum maths effort seeks to extract and study essential structures from quantum theory and quantum field theory, relate these to well-studied structures in pure mathematics, and explore connections between different fields.
Already, surprising connections have been found to other applied areas of mathematics: for example, high-level structures for quantum computing can be useful as a model of meaning in linguistics.
Meanwhile a multi-department effort has recently started, looking at the quantum effects in living system and the possible technological implications.
Image: Art to represent quantum maths, derived from the Mandelbrot set. Image (c) Olbaid-ST at deviantART.
Groups involved: Quantum Maths: Abramsky, Coecke and Pulman (Computer Science), Douglas and Kremnitzer (Maths Institute). Quantum Biology: Abramsky, Coecke (Computer Science), Benjamin, Briggs, Smith (Materials), Saunders (Philosophy), Ardavan, Foot, Jaksch, Jones, Nunn, B Smith, Steane, Turberfield, Vedral, Taylor, Walmsley (Physics).
Total value of research grants supporting this Theme: £XXM Largest grants include the following:
Funder: EPSRC
Total funds: £1.2M
Dates: 01 Oct 2013 - 31 Sep 2016
Departments: Computer Science, Mathematics
Principal Investigator: Samson Abramsky
Co-investigators: Bob Coecke, Chris Douglas, Kobi Kremnitzer
External collaborators: XXX
Grant title: A Unified Model of Compositional and Distributional Semantics: Theory and Applications
Funder: EPSRC
Total funds: £400K to Oxford of £1.5M overall
Dates: 01 Oct 2012 - 31 Sep 2015
Departments: Computer Science, Mathematics
Principal Investigator: Bob Coecke
Co-investigators: Stephen Pulman
External collaborators: Cambridge, Sussex, York, Edinburgh
Funder: Oxford Martin School
Total funds: £XXM
Dates: XXX-YYY
Departments: Computer Science, Materials, Philisophy, Physics
Directors: Dieter Jaksch and Vlatko Vedral
Other currently active grants, individually less that £500k, provide staff, student, travel and conference support.
Total from smaller grants: £XXM
Quantum Foundations: Probing quantum reality with theory and experiment
Theme Overview:
Exploring the fundamental underpinnings of quantum science. Experimental work includes studying the nature of quantum superposition, non-locality and measurement, and there is applied theory aimed at rigorous tests of these phenomena. On the pure theory side, work includes the study of several categorical structures as a mathematical foundation for quantum theory; one goal is a purely diagrammatic quantum formalism. There is also a new effort towards re-expressing physics in terms of the dichotomy between possible and impossible tasks.
Groups involved: Abramsky/Coecke (Computer Science), Laird/Briggs (Materials), Deutsch, Ekert/Kay (Maths), Vedral (Physics).
Total value of research grants supporting this Theme: £XXM
Largest grants include the following:
Image: Schrodinger's cat, dead AND alive. (c) 2008 chubas7 at deviantART.
Grant title: Categorical unification: where foundational physics, natural language and rational processes meet
Funder: John Templeton Foundation
Total funds: $850K
Dates: 01 Oct 2012 - 30 Jun 2015
Departments: Computer Sciences
Principal Investigator: Bob Coecke
Co-investigator: Samson Abramsky
External collaborators: XXX
Grant title: Experimental Tests of Quantum Reality
Funder: Templeton World Charity Foundation
Total funds: £1.8M
Dates: 1 Oct 2013 – 30 Sep 2016
Departments: Materials, Physics
Principal Investigator: Andrew Briggs
Oxford Co-PI: Andrew Steane
Co-investigators: Erik Gauger, Edward Laird, Kyriakos Porfyrakis
External Co-PIs: Hans Halvorson (Princeton), Klaas Landsman (Nijmegen)
Other currently active grants, individually less that £500k, provide staff, student, travel and conference support.
Total from smaller grants: £XXM