Cornell University physicist Peter McMahon has won a five-year, $1.35 million award to investigate programmable chips that could handle different forms of quantum light. The project aims to make quantum devices more adaptable, though the research is experimental and no commercial technology has been announced.
McMahon is among 21 scientists in the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation's 2026 Experimental Physics Investigators cohort, Cornell announced. He is an associate professor of applied and engineering physics who joined the university's engineering college in 2019.
Most photonic chips are designed for a specific task. McMahon's team instead wants to build a device that can be reconfigured after it is made, allowing researchers to program different operations involving quantum light on the same chip.
The work will adapt platforms developed for ordinary, or classical, light to handle quantum states. Cornell says the team will explore ways to create and guide single photons and entangled pairs, change the wavelength of quantum light and generate forms of light with controllable structure.
If successful, the approach could help connect quantum systems that operate at different wavelengths. Cornell identified quantum communication, sensing and computing as potential longer-term applications, not products that the award itself will deliver.
McMahon said the steady five-year funding will let his group pursue ideas that carry more risk and require a longer research horizon. The foundation says its program also brings investigators together to exchange ideas and emphasizes mentoring within their research groups.
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