The Quantum World: Past, Present, and Future

Please join us for the Orange County ACM Chapter's bimonthly evening program series.

The Quantum World: Past, Present, and Future

Agenda
6:30 PM Doors Open & Networking
7:00 PM Announcements, Presentation, and Q&A
8:30 PM Meeting Adjourns

Event Details
Quantum physics emerged to address the shortcomings of classical physics in explaining key phenomena such as blackbody radiation and the photoelectric effect. Today, quantum science has expanded into a broad ecosystem of hardware platforms, including superconducting, trapped ion, photonics, neutral atom, and semiconductor spin qubits, accompanied by the growth of custom quantum software stacks and industrial hardware development. In the development of quantum chips, progress toward useful quantum technologies depends on overcoming noise challenges through quantum error correction as well as techniques to increase coherence times and the number of qubits.
Quantum technologies are transitioning from research laboratories to practical deployment in industry, but their successful performance depends not only on a large number of qubits but also on a comprehensive, layered ecosystem of technologies, services, and infrastructure. Together, these areas illustrate how quantum science is evolving from foundational theory to diverse experimental platforms and emerging applications across a range of disciplines.
This presentation provides a high-level overview of the topics mentioned above, along with discussions of research directions in my group. These include photon-mediated multi-qubit operations in modular semiconductor quantum dot spin systems, as well as the interaction of quantum states of light with disordered media often found in nature, bridging concepts from quantum optics and multiple scattering toward potential quantum-optics-enabled techniques.

Speaker
Dr. Nooshin Estakhri is an assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering at Chapman University, with an affiliation in Physics, and a member of the Institute for Quantum Studies (IQS) at Chapman. She holds a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering – Optics and Photonics from the University of Michigan, and prior to joining Chapman, was a postdoctoral associate at Virginia Tech, working on semiconductor quantum processors. Her research interests are in the areas of quantum optics, scattering phenomena, metamaterials, and metasurfaces. Specific areas of research include studying and controlling wave-matter interactions in complex nanoscale systems, such as disordered media and metasurfaces, and investigating new phenomena and their physical dynamics in the scattering of classical and quantum light from these structures. Some example projects include quantum coherent backscattering from disordered media, coherent virtual absorption in metasurfaces, and adaptive engineered surfaces for quantum interference control.

Co-sponsors
This event is co-sponsored by the IEEE Orange County Computer Society, SIGAI OC, and the IEEE OC Solid-State Circuits Society (SSCS).

Venue & Parking
This meeting will be held at the Knobbe Martens' Irvine offices. Parking validation will be provided to attendees.