Daniel Marrujo returns to Brookhaven National Laboratory for the second day of a two-day Micro Journeys deep dive, this time heading into the lab's quantum networking facility with a panel of the world's leading experts in the field. Associate Laboratory Director Gabriella Carini, staff scientists Soumyajit Mandal, Julián Martínez-Rincón & Paul Stankus, and research scientists Sven Herrman & Prashansa Mukim walk through Brookhaven's real-world quantum network test bed, a 161-mile system with five nodes spanning Long Island, Stony Brook University, Brooklyn, and Columbia University. The episode moves from entangled photons and the physics of quantum communication, to free-space telescope links capable of transmitting single photons through open air, to custom-built microelectronics engineered for the most extreme environments on Earth, and finally to a NASA-led mission searching for the universe's earliest, darkest chapter from the far side of the moon.
At the center of the conversation is a fundamental limitation of classical networks: information sent as digital bits can be intercepted, copied, and manipulated without detection. Quantum communication solves this differently because a quantum state is destroyed the moment it's measured, any attempt to eavesdrop is inherently detectable. But building a real, long-distance quantum network comes with steep physical costs. Photons are lost over distance in fiber, entanglement can't simply be \"boosted\" the way a classical signal can, and demonstrating true quantum repeaters, the technology needed to extend range without breaking entanglement, has never been done at scale.
Brookhaven's answer is a working test bed that generates, swaps, and routes entangled photons across real commercial infrastructure, paired with free-space telescope links and next-generation microelectronics built to operate in environments as inhospitable as liquid nitrogen temperatures and deep space, laying the groundwork for what researchers describe as an unhackable \"quantum internet.\"
What You'll Discover in This Episode
[02:02] Gabriella Carini explains how Brookhaven's quantum networking program began with the National Quantum Initiative Act and a chance meeting with a Stony Brook physicist
[11:18] Julian Martinez details the live 161-mile quantum network test bed connecting Brookhaven, Stony Brook, and New York City
[13:11] The non-cloning theorem explains why quantum information can't simply be copied or amplified like a classical signal
[21:15] A telescope built not to capture images, but to send single photons through open air as part of a free-space quantum link
[28:39] Why quantum secure communication is described as the \"killer application\" of quantum networking
[39:50] A NASA-led mission places a radio telescope on the far side of the moon to listen for signals from the universe's earliest, darkest era
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