This report synthesizes the outcomes of a two-day workshop held in Washington, D.C. in May, 2025 that convened researchers, industry representatives, and government stakeholders to examine the current state and future directions of quantum diamond technologies. The workshop's goals were to assess the most promising use cases, to identify the key technical and structural challenges limiting adoption, and to chart potential pathways for aligning application needs with diamond material and device development. Through a series of technical presentations and open discussions, participants explored both near-term demonstrations and long-term infrastructure needs, highlighting the critical role of coordination between material suppliers, device engineers, and end users. The goal of this report is to distill those insights into a coherent set of cross-cutting themes, challenges, and strategic actions that can guide government, industry, and academic efforts to accelerate the maturation and commercialization of quantum diamond technologies.
This report synthesizes the outcomes of a two-day workshop held in Washington, D.C. in May, 2025 that convened researchers, industry representatives, and government stakeholders to examine the current state and future directions of quantum diamond technologies. The workshop's goals were to assess the most promising use cases, to identify the key technical and structural challenges limiting adoption, and to chart potential pathways for aligning application needs with diamond material and device development. Through a series of technical presentations and open discussions, participants explored both near-term demonstrations and long-term infrastructure needs, highlighting the critical role of coordination between material suppliers, device engineers, and end users. The goal of this report is to distill those insights into a coherent set of cross-cutting themes, challenges, and strategic actions that can guide government, industry, and academic efforts to accelerate the maturation and commercialization of quantum diamond technologies.
The MIT Quantum Index Report 2026 provides a comprehensive, data-driven assessment of the evolving quantum-technology landscape. As quantum technologies progress from scientific promise toward practical deployment, decision-makers need clear, accessible measures of technical capability, investment, workforce development, policy and public engagement. This second edition expands and updates the Quantum Index Report's analysis of quantum computing and networking. It tracks developments across research, industry, education, government and society. Drawing on academic, commercial, and policy sources, the report synthesizes trends and visualizes change over time to support informed comparison and discussion. The Quantum Index Report is intended as a nonpartisan public resource for business leaders, educators, policymakers, researchers and the broader public. Its aim is to reduce the complexity of a rapidly changing field while clarifying both its opportunities and remaining challenges.
In response to numerous programs seeking to advance quantum education and workforce development in the United States, experts from academia, industry, government, and professional societies convened for a National Science Foundation-sponsored workshop in February 2024 to explore the benefits and challenges of establishing a national center for quantum education. Broadly, such a center would foster collaboration and build the infrastructure required to develop a diverse and quantum-ready workforce. The workshop discussions focused on how a center could uniquely address gaps in public, K-12, and undergraduate quantum information science and engineering (QISE) education. Specifically, the community identified activities that, through a center, could lead to an increase in student awareness of quantum careers, boost the number of educators trained in quantum-related subjects, strengthen pathways into quantum careers, enhance the understanding of the US quantum workforce, and elevate public engagement with QISE. Core proposed activities for the center include professional development for educators, coordinated curriculum development and curation, expanded access to educational laboratory equipment, robust evaluation and assessment practices, network building, and enhanced public engagement with quantum science.
The National Quantum Initiative Joint Algorithms Workshop brought together researchers across academia, national laboratories, and industry to assess the current landscape of quantum algorithms and discuss roadblocks to progress. The workshop featured discussions on emerging algorithmic techniques, resource constraints in near-term hardware, and opportunities for co-design across software and systems. Presented here are seven topics from the workshop, each highlighting a critical challenge or promising opportunity discussed during the event. Together, they offer a snapshot of the field's evolving priorities and a shared vision for what is needed to advance quantum computational capabilities.
The past decade has seen an explosion of development in new devices, modalities, and architectures for advanced sensing, computation, and communication. This growth has been driven by the massive investments of large consumer-tech companies in data-hungry domains of customer interest. As these companies develop their products and seek a competitive edge, technologies which can provide advantage across application areas by making computation cheaper, or sensors more knowledgeable, or communication faster, are attracting more interest in and outside academia. Photonics, or the study of how to manipulate light, is a broad-based platform that inherently delivers on these promises. Although photonics has been a part of daily life since the invention of the laser, modern needs and aspirational designs which meet those needs far exceed the capabilities of the platforms which have traditionally constituted the photonics toolkit.\nThere are two specific areas where standard photonic materials are lacking - support for visible wavelengths and functionality for quantum optics. Currently, there are many implementations of systems which use visible light or quantum optics on the tabletop, but the drive to scale these technologies and deliver them to the consumer encounters a roadblock in their size and cost. Visible light sensors, for instance, could greatly benefit from conversion into an integrated photonics platform, where the optical components are printed onto a small substrate. However, the standard materials used for such systems (silicon and indium phosphide) absorb visible light, and other materials (like silicon nitride) do not have the attributes required for advanced functionality. More compellingly, there exist very few material platforms which can host the quantum defects required for next-generation technologies like quantum computation or secure communication.\nThe past decade has seen extensive research into an emerging material platform which can deliver on the ability to bring integrated visible photonics and quantum optics to the same chip - diamond. With a broad transparency region (from UV to the far infrared) and high refractive index, diamond makes an excellent material for run-of-the-mill photonic devices. More importantly, it harbors atom-like defects in its crystal lattice - the nitrogen-vacancy, silicon-vacancy, and germanium-vacancy centers, among many more - which provide a direct interface between the photons circulating within the diamond device and the quantum world. Taken together, these simple properties of diamond constitute a powerful approach towards implementation of advanced quantum technologies, such as repeaters for secure quantum communication or even, one day, computers.\nBefore that future arrives, diamond's capability must first be developed. Diamond has only been available in significant quantities for research use for about a decade, and as such, the processing technologies which are taken for granted in silicon or silicon nitride-based work must be redeveloped. Within the context of photonic devices, we discuss different fabrication strategies and their implications for device design. For visible light devices especially, we investigate methods to reduce sidewall roughness for etched structures.\nInterfacing with diamond photonic structures also brings its own unique set of challenges due to its high refractive index and very small material footprint. To this end, we develop a method termed "loaded tapered-fiber coupling" to optically access large, free-standing diamond devices. For size-limited diamond resonators and waveguides, we also develop auxiliary optical waveguides to act as spot-converters for visible wavelengths, an improvement on previous techniques for telecom-range wavelengths.\nFinally, by synthesizing these improvements in fabrication, we embark on a set of experiments in diamond microresonators. Nonlinear optics is an excellent testbed for such improvements, both for diamond's superlative properties in that regard and their high sensitivity to improvements in fabrication. First, we look at a process known as Raman lasing by constructing long path-length resonators.This technique involves the shifting of an input photon by 40 THz via the interaction with the diamond's crystal lattice.The first demonstration in a diamond integrated device was shown with a pump wavelength of 1600 nm, with an output that was tuned over 100 nm and a low threshold. Leveraging the developments in visible photonics for diamond, a second Raman laser was demonstrated, this time at near-visible (720 nm) wavelengths.This too had a Stokes output which was tunable to over 100 nm and a very low threshold. Raman-specific effects such as polarization conversion were also investigated.\nA cousin to the Raman effect, the Kerr nonlinearity plays a key role in so-called microresonator (or Kerr) frequency combs. We survey the possibilities and difficulties in implementation for a diamond platform, highlighting the competition between the Kerr and Raman nonlinearities. Although the outlook for a technologically relevant Kerr comb in diamond is ultimately pessimistic, avenues for improvement are highlighted. Namely, we investigate via simulation a related class of effects, known as supercontinuum generation.Taking advantage of subtleties of the Raman process in diamond, we can find a preferred geometry which enables generation of a broadband light spectrum natively in diamond.\nFinally, we look at alternative applications of diamond, particularly in high-power systems. Due to its excellent thermal conductivity and power-handling capacity, optics fashioned purely out of diamond can show significant advantages compared to other materials. We end with a discussion of the design principles and results stemming from this work.
Quantum technologies have emerged as critical enablers of next-generation communication, computation, and sensing systems. This review aims to assess the current state of Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) and related quantum technologies by examining recent empirical findings, methodological innovations, and systemic challenges. A structured literature search was conducted across Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar using Boolean keyword combinations targeting QKD, quantum sensing, and communication applications. The review focused on peer-reviewed articles from the last five years and included experimental studies, simulations, and applied case analyses. Findings show that QKD has demonstrated remarkable reliability in both controlled laboratory and real-world settings. Studies on multicore fiber networks highlight the potential for high-dimensional communication security, while comparative analyses reveal disparities between implementation strategies across different regions. However, systemic challenges such as inadequate infrastructure, inconsistent regulation, and insufficient public understanding hinder wide-scale adoption. The discussion identifies critical factors contributing to these challenges and proposes actionable policy recommendations, including increased investment in infrastructure, standardized regulations, and targeted education programs. This review concludes that achieving the full potential of quantum technologies will require integrative strategies addressing technical, institutional, and social dimensions. Future research should emphasize longitudinal evaluation and interdisciplinary collaboration to enhance scalability and impact. The insights offered here provide a foundational framework for policymakers, researchers, and industry leaders to advance the adoption of secure, scalable quantum systems.
Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) stands as a cornerstone in the realm of quantum communications, promising unparalleled security through the principles of quantum mechanics. However, the realization of QKD's full potential hinges not only on technological advancements but also on the establishment of robust standards governing its implementation. This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the current landscape of QKD standards, highlighting existing gaps and charting a course towards their evolution. We begin by elucidating the foundational importance of standards in ensuring interoperability, reliability, and scalability within QKD Networks (QKDN). Despite the existence of several standardization efforts, such as those by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), significant gaps persist. Furthermore, we identify emerging challenges posed by the integration of QKD into existing classical communication infrastructures, as well as the advent of quantum networks comprising multiple QKD nodes. Addressing these challenges necessitates a concerted effort towards the refinement and expansion of QKD standards. To this end, we propose several key directions for the evolution of QKD standards. We also advocate further enhancing collaboration between academia, industry and standards bodies to streamline the standardization process and foster innovation. Finally, we underscore the critical role of standards in catalyzing the adoption of QKD technologies by industry stakeholders. Standards-compliant QKD solutions not only instill confidence among end users, but also facilitate seamless integration into existing communication infrastructures. In conclusion, this paper offers insights into the state-of-the-art, challenges, and future directions in QKD standardization, underlining its fundamental importance for the advancement of practical applications of quantum secure communication technologies.