On October 4, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics will be awarded to French scientist Alain Aspe, American scientist John Krause and Austrian scientist Anton Salinger for their work on entangled photons. Experiments, demonstrated violations of Bell's inequality, and groundbreaking contributions to quantum information science.

Pan Jianwei, executive vice president of the University of Science and Technology of China and academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was very excited to learn that the Nobel Prize was awarded to researchers in the field of quantum technology again.

He said: "On the one hand, the field of quantum technology has been affirmed; on the other hand, when introducing the work of the winners, the award committee mentioned the work done by many Chinese scientists. We feel that for the development of this field, Chinese scientists also made an outstanding contribution.”

Pan Jianwei took a group photo with the "Micius" quantum satellite model in the office of the University of Science and Technology of China. Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhang Duan

They are the leaders of the second quantum information revolution

To ordinary people, the theory of quantum seems unfathomable. In fact, quantum mechanics, established in the early 20th century, is one of the greatest scientific revolutions in human history.

Quantum technology can break through the bottleneck of classical technology in ensuring information security, improving computing speed, and improving measurement accuracy, and become the source of major technological innovations in the fields of information, energy, materials, and life. Provide core strategic strength.

The three scientists who have just won the award are the first to carry out experimental research on quantum physics.

"These three scientists should have won the Nobel Prize long ago. In 2010, they were recognized by the Wolf Prize for their non-locality test of quantum mechanics and their promotion of the processing of optical quantum information." Pan Jianwei said.

"They are the leaders of the second quantum information revolution and important pioneers in quantum information science." Ma Xiaosong, a professor at Nanjing University and a student of Anton Salinger, believes that these three scientists won the Nobel Prize in Physics Deserved.

"In the field of quantum information, the non-local verification of quantum networks, quantum hidden state transmission, and long-distance quantum hidden state transmission are all pioneered by these three pioneers of quantum information science." Ma Xiaosong introduced.

Fortunately, Chinese scientists have also made important contributions in these researches. As a student of Anton Salinger, Academician Pan Jianwei is one of the main participants in the research work of Anton Salinger mentioned by the award committee.

"The award committee mentioned four quantum communication experimental papers by my mentor Anton Salinger. I am the first author of two of them and the second author of two of them," said Pan Jianwei.

At the same time, "the award committee also proposed three other articles, and these three articles were researches carried out independently by Chinese scientists. Therefore, from this point of view, I not only joined Salinger's research team, but also participated in the research work. I feel very lucky to have pioneered the field of quantum information physics," said Pan Jianwei.

More importantly, "Chinese scientists have also made great contributions in turning the dreams of award-winning scientists into reality." Pan Jianwei is very proud of his achievements in this regard.

Salinger successfully foresees the birth of a new field

Talking about his mentor Anton Salinger, Pan Jianwei's first impression is that he is very knowledgeable.

"When I first arrived on the mentor team, I had no experience in doing experiments. Faced with this situation, ordinary mentors would be hesitant and would not let a theoretical person do the experiment. However, because my mentor himself has done theory background, so he was also very happy and agreed with me to do the experimental work." Pan Jianwei said.

At the same time, Anton Salinger can also respect students' choices and give them proper guidance to enable students to realize their dreams. "From this perspective, he is also a very good teacher."

"Mr. Salinger is very far-sighted. He successfully foresees the birth of a new field." Pan Jianwei remembers clearly that the first EU joint project on quantum information in Europe was established under the leadership of Salinger, "I See his project application is 1996".

From 2005 to 2012, Ma Xiaosong carried out related research in the field of quantum physics under the guidance of Professor Anton Salinger.

"The experiment of quantum physics is long and full of uncertainty. The success of each experiment has to go through countless failures. This is a process of gradual improvement and requires a long time of tempering. Throughout the research process, Anton Sai Professor Linger has always maintained an incomparable love for this subject. At the same time, he is also very concerned about the growth of young people and often encourages us, including Academician Pan Jianwei." Ma Xiaosong said.

At an academic conference three weeks ago, Anton Salinger told Ma Xiaosong that he had just retired from the position of president of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and was very excited to return to the scientific research job he loves and continue to engage in scientific research.

my country has a number of achievements with important international influence

In recent years, my country has also attached great importance to the development of quantum information technology, breaking through a series of important scientific issues and key core technologies in the field of quantum information technology, and producing a number of achievements with important international influence.

"Overall, my country is in an international leading position in the research and application of quantum communication, on the same level as developed countries in quantum computing, and has developed rapidly in quantum precision measurement." Pan Jianwei said.

He said that the development goal of quantum communication is to build a global wide-area quantum communication network system. The realization of the metropolitan area quantum communication network through optical fibers, the connection between two adjacent cities through repeaters, and the connection between distant areas through the transit of satellite platforms are the development routes of the wide area quantum communication network.

my country's metro quantum communication technology has initially met the practical requirements. my country has built the world's first long-distance optical fiber quantum secure communication backbone network "Beijing-Shanghai Trunk Line", and has carried out long-distance quantum secure communication in the fields of finance, government affairs, and electric power. Technology verification and application demonstration. In terms of satellite quantum communication, my country has developed and launched the world's first quantum science experimental satellite "Mozi". It is the first in the world to realize satellite-to-earth quantum communication and intercontinental quantum communication for the first time. Feasibility of quantum communication.

The core task of quantum computing research is the coherent manipulation of multiple qubits. At present, quantum computing research has achieved "quantum superiority", that is, the computing power of quantum computers for specific problems exceeds that of traditional supercomputers, and achieving this goal requires coherent manipulation of about 50 qubits.

In 2020, scholars such as Pan Jianwei and Lu Chaoyang successfully developed the 76-photon quantum computing prototype "Nine Chapters", which has promoted the frontier research of global quantum computing to a new height. After Google's "Plane Suzuki" quantum computer, my country has successfully realized the first time. A milestone breakthrough in the "superiority of quantum computing".

However, "my country started late in the field of quantum precision measurement, and there is a certain gap compared with developed countries as a whole. However, in recent years, the gap has been rapidly narrowed, and in several research directions it is comparable to the international highest level of public reports." Pan Jianwei said .