Discovered the light and advances the way to quantum computing, quantum communication and maybe even teleportation (but only of photons)

One of the Lottery's Landau Prize winners this year is Professor David Gershoni of the Technion, for his research contribution in the creation of entangled photons

For information about all the winners of the 2014 Landau Prize in the science category

Professor David Gershoni, from the Faculty of Physics at the Technion, will receive the 2014 Landau Lottery Prize for Arts and Sciences. This is for his contribution to the future development of a device that emits pairs of entangled photons. The award committee stated that "this method is fundamentally different from its predecessors, and will have the advantage of being able to duplicate these standards and thus produce entangled photons on demand. This method is of great importance in experimental research in the field of quantum information."

Professor Gershoni, born in 1953, acquired his academic education at the Technion. In 1986 he started a post-doctorate at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey, and after about a year he was accepted there as a faculty member and engaged in research and development. In 1991 he returned to the Technion, this time as an academic faculty member in the Faculty of Physics.
In 2006, Professor Gershoni demonstrated the possibility of creating photons (particles of light) entangled using a semiconductor. Entanglement is a phenomenon in which two quantum particles behave as physical twins that maintain a quantum correlation between them: when the properties of one of the particles change, the properties of the twin particle also change at the same time, and it is impossible to describe the state of one separately from the state of the other.

In joint work with Professor Yosef Evron and doctoral students Nika Akopian and Nathaniel Lindner, Professor Gershoni proved - both theoretically and experimentally - that under suitable conditions, a semiconductor with nanometer dimensions may be a source of interlaced light. The researchers have proven that it is possible to build a device based on these sources, which will make it possible to produce entangled photons 'on demand' - a significant step on the way to quantum communication, quantum computing and possibly even teleportation.

"An act of magic in space"
The history of quantum entanglement is based on theoretical research conducted by Albert Einstein, Boris Podolsky and Nathan Rosen (Rosen was one of the founders of the Physics Faculty at the Technion). In 1935, the three published the article, called EPR for short - the first letters of their names. In this article, Einstein's disapproval of quantum mechanics, which apparently 'permits' a situation in which information moves at a speed higher than the speed of light, is expressed. Einstein believed that this 'possibility' was nothing but a fiction, or as he put it: "spooky action at a distance".

Niels Bohr, the father of quantum mechanics, claimed in response to the EPR article that the same 'action at a distance' is actually possible, being based not on a 'mechanical effect' but on a 'logical effect' on the conditions that define the system's behavior options. Einstein was not obliged, and defined Bohr's response as "Talmudic nonsense".

In 1962, the Irish physicist John Bell showed that the Einstein-Bohr controversy could be resolved experimentally. Experiments conducted in the XNUMXs and XNUMXs, following the mathematical model formulated by Bell, proved that entangled particles are indeed endowed with the wonderful correlations predicted by quantum mechanics. The research of professors Gershoni and Avron, which was based in part on the theoretical work of a former faculty member, a research professor who was awarded the late award, was a breakthrough in this path.
"In fact, we showed how it is possible to develop a device that 'fires' a pair of entangled photons at the desired moment," explains Professor Gershoni. "This discovery is an important step on the way from the current (classical) technology to the future (quantum) technology. Current technology - including computing, communication, lighting, information storage and information processing - is based on semiconductors, so our discovery is very relevant to the high-tech world. We are developing nanometer structures of semiconductors that actually act as 'artificial atoms', whose behavior can be explained and predicted based on quantum mechanics. We believe that our discovery will advance the field of quantum information processing that will be the basis of future technology, and our research motivation also stems from the hope that technology will follow the research, and that in the near future we will be able to see real quantum technology in widespread use."

The Landau Science and Research Lottery Prize is awarded to scientists who have achieved meritorious achievements in their field and made a valuable contribution to the advancement of science and research. Professor Gershoni will receive the prize in the field of physics, according to the decision of the judging committee, which includes professors Dan Shahar, Shmuel Fishman and Ora Wellman. The winners in the other categories are Professor Dana Wolf (in the field of virology) and Professor Howard Litwin (aging sciences), both from the Hebrew University, Professor Elisha Kimron (Hebrew language research), Professor Amir Sagi (agriculture) both from Ben Gurion University, and Professor Daniel Hanoch Wagner (chemical engineering and materials engineering).