The light fantastic
- Tiana Cline and Karolina Komendera | Brainstorm magazine
A quantum approach to light, physics, communication and computing, with Professor Andrew Forbes.
In the Structured Light Laboratory, Forbes and his team manipulate light. They tailor it, cut it and customise it for a range of unique applications. “How quantum comes into it, is that when we do the structuring of lights, there are three levels: we design and build lasers and the laser itself gives off light. Then we do it outside the laser – here we buy a commercial, off-the shelf laser and we do some customising of its light for whatever we want to do with it. And the third level is quantum,” explains Forbes, who is also the Director of Wits’ Quantum Initiative (WitsQ) and co-author of South Africa’s Quantum Roadmap (which was approved by the Department of Science and Technology in March 2021).
Read the full article: The light fantastic
This article was published in the October issue of Brainstorm Magazine.