Welcome to the Guha Lab
The Guha Group's research and educational interests lie in the engineering of materials, devices, and nanofabrication techniques for applications in future information processing systems. These include non-traditional systems such as those enabling quantum information processing, networked cyberphysical sensors and devices for distributed processing, and novel devices and materials for classical computing. Our interdisciplinary approach, augmented by our network of collaborators, facilitates the development of basic science concepts into engineering implementations.
Our team, led by Professor Supratik Guha, represents a mix of backgrounds and experience levels.
Our research spans a variety of areas, including novel nanofabrication techniques, quantum memory, and sensing networks.
Our group is always on the lookout for new researchers and project ideas, so feel free to get in touch if you're interested in joining.
News and announcements

September 2023: We're pleased to announce the completion of several papers regarding properties of Er-doped oxide thin films for quantum memory applications, which have been posted to arXiv and submitted for peer review. More details are available on our group's Publications page.

June 2023: Congratulations to Cheng for having his proceedings paper "Optical properties of Er ion doped TiO2 with atomic layer deposition" published subsequent to his presentation at SPIE! You can see the paper here.

February 2023: Gregory recently participated in a series of media events hosted by Q-NEXT designed to introduce quantum science concepts to fans of the Marvel film Quantumania. These events included a video posted on Twitter talking about some of his research at Argonne National Lab, plus participation in a panel hosted in collaboration with Marvel Studios, UChicago, Argonne, and the Chicago Quantum Exchange after an early screening of the movie.

memQ, the quantum startup recently cofounded by Guha Group alumnus Dr. Manish Singh, has been granted $2 million in seed funding from investors including Quantonation, Exposition Ventures, and the George Schultz Innovation Fund. memQ plans to use these funds in accelerating their quantum networking research. The full story may be found here.

January 2023: The PME has released an article covering the Guha Group's Thoreau project, which has developed wide-area wireless sensor networks for use in soil monitoring systems. The story may be found here.

December 2022: Q-NEXT, of which the Guha Group is a member lab, is one of the Department of Energy's five National Quantum Institutes. Q-NEXT recently published its Quantum Interconnects Roadmap, with Professor Guha and graduate student Dr. Manish Singh (now CEO of the quantum startup memQ) actively involved in the writing of the roadmap. The roadmap may be found here.

The Department of Defense Basic Research Office workshop report, entitled "Future Directions Workshop: Materials, Processes, and R&D Challenges in Microelectronics," has been released. Professor Guha was co-chair of this workshop along with Professors Jean Anne Incorvia (UT Austin), Srabanti Chowdhury (Stanford), and Philip Wong (Stanford). A copy of the report may be found here.

September 2022: Cheng Ji's paper "Porous but Mechanically Robust All-Inorganic Antireflective Coatings Synthesized using Polymers of Intrinsic Microporosity" has been published in ACS Nano. Congratulations!

In other news, Greg presented a talk at NAMBE 2022 entitled "Thin film engineering in Er-doped CeO2 for quantum memory."

And finally, Manish Singh was invited to give a talk at IEDM 2022 in December, on the topic of "Rare earth based solid-state qubit platforms." Congratulations on the invitation!

August 2022: Alan Dibos' paper entitled "Purcell Enhancement of Erbium Ions in TiO2 on Silicon Nanocavities" has been published in Nano Letters, with several Guha Group members as authors. Congratulations to the team!

May 2022: The Guha Group, led by Srinivasa, has published the paper "A Wireless Underground Sensor Network Field Pilot for Agriculture and Ecology: Soil Moisture Mapping Using Signal Attenuation" in MDPI's Sensors journal. Congratulations!

March 2022: Manish will be chairing a general quantum information session at APS March Meeting. You can find more information and the schedule here.

Xella, Connor, and Vamsi have also been accepted as presenters at MRS Spring. Xella will be giving a talk titled "Nanofabrication of an on-chip Direct Write Evaporator for scanning near-field 3-D deposition," and Connor and Vamsi will be presenting a poster titled "Transferrable Single Crystal Thin Films of Silicon Enabled by Solid Phase Epitaxy."

February 2022: Manish, in collaboration with the Awschalom group, has completed his paper "Development of a Scalable Quantum Memory Platform -- Materials Science of Erbium-Doped TiO2 Thin Films on Silicon." The paper is now available on arXiv here. The paper has been submitted for consideration with a peer-reviewed journal. Congratulations Manish!

Jiyuan's paper "Dynamic-quenching of a single-photon avalanche photodetector using an adaptive resistive switch", which has been available on arXiv here, has been accepted for publication in Nature Communications and is available here. Congratulations Jiyuan!

Manish's startup memq, in collaboration with Dr. Sean Sullivan in the Awschalom Group, has won the George Shultz innovation fund award. You can read the full story here.

January 2022: We congratulate Manish Kumar Singh on successfully defending his dissertation "Silicon Compatible Oxide Platform for engineering rare-earth qubits". Congratulations, Dr. Singh!

November 2021: We are excited to announce that Emilio has received the 2021-2022 Quad Research Scholars award. Congratulations Emilio!

October 2021: Progress is ongoing in our current lab space in Searle Laboratory for constructing a new bonding chamber. The vacuum chamber will be used for studying atomic imprint crystallization and near-field depositions. Once installation is complete, this chamber will allow us to carry out experiments to create large area single crystals on amorphous substrates.

So far we've installed the horizontal and vertical sample manipulators, along with the gate valves, cryo pumps, and various viewports and other vacuum miscellany. Next to be installed are the turbopump and water cooling systems, and then the system is ready for use!

September 2021: Professor Guha has been featured in Protiviti's podcast "The Post-Quantum World" as a representative of Q-NEXT. You can listen to the episode here.

August 2021: Katie has been featured in an article posted with the Department of Energy and Argonne National Lab, discussing her ongoing research on quantum technologies. The article can be found here.

In other exciting news, Manish's paper on quantum repeaters is now available to read online. Check the Publications page to learn more.

July 2021: Manish, in collaboration with Prof. Liang Jiang, Prof. David Awschalom, and our own Prof. Supratik Guha, have been accepted for publication with IEEE Transactions on Quantum Engineering on a paper titled "Key device and materials specifications for a repeater enabled quantum internet". Congratulations Manish and team!

June 2021: Vamsi has received awards for best micrograph at the 64th International Conference on Electron, Ion, and Photon Beam Technology and Nanofabriation (EIPBN). Congratulations Vamsi!

Click or tap the images to see enlarged versions and more information about each.

On another note, Professor Guha was featured as contributor to The Hindu Business Line in an article on water pollution. The article can be found here.

April 2021: Vamsi and his team have been accepted to give two talks, titled "Fabrication of Silicon Micro Tips for Microbial Cell Lysis Applications" and "Fabrication of Micro Chemical Vapor Deposition Chamber by Dry Deep Silicon and Metal-Assisted Etching Techniques", at EIPBN 2021. Congratulations Vamsi!

March 2021: Bhaswar and his team have published their paper "Nanoporous Dielectric Resistive Memories Using Sequential Infiltration Synthesis" with ACS Nano. Congratulations Bhaswar!

Additionally, Gregory has been accepted to PhD candidacy with the PME with his project "Orbital engineering using polarizing heterostructures for quantum memory". Congratulations Gregory!

February 2021: Professor Guha spoke to the National Academy of Sciences Committee on Chemical Engineering in the 21st Century: Challenges and Opportunities, on the topic of materials and devices for future information technologies in the fields of microelectronics and coherent quantum processing.

In other news, Cheng presented his and Jiyuan's research as the talk "A dynamic quenching method of single-photon avalanche diode" to the PME Quantum Information Science and Engineering Seminar for students and faculty.

December 2020: The Guha Group's cloth mask research has been recognized by ACS's Chemical and Engineering News as an important contribution to infectious disease research, as part of their Year in Chemistry 2020 article: read more here.

October 2020: Zhongbo and his team have completed their paper "Photonic Microresonator Based Sensor for Selective Nitrate Ion Detection" and submitted to Sensors and Actuators B: Chemical. Congratulations again Zhongbo!

August 2020: Zhongbo will be presenting his talk “Nitrate ion-selective microresonator sensor” at ACS Fall 2020 Virtual Meeting & Expo at the end of this month. Congratulations Zhongbo!

UChicago News on AIFARMS: The Guha Group joins the new Artificial Intelligence for Future Agricultural Resilience, Management, and Sustainability (AIFARMS) Institute, one of two national institutes funded by the NSF and USDA that will serve as a nexus for multidisciplinary research teams to advance foundational AI for addressing important challenges facing world agriculture. The AIFARMS institute is led by UIUC, with the University of Chicago, Michigan State, Tuskegee Institute and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center as collaborating institutes, and Professor Guha as a co-PI of the project. The Guha Group contributes its experience in geospatial sensor networks for soil and water from the Thoreau project. More details on AIFARMS may be found here.

UChicago News on Q-NEXT: The Guha Group also joins the newly-announced Q-NEXT center hosted by Argonne National Laboratory, formed as part of the DOE's newly established Quantum Information Sciences Centers as part of the National Quantum Initiative. The Q-NEXT center will work to develop the science and technology required to control and distribute quantum information, with the Guha Group contributing its research into quantum memory and information processing.

May 2020: Media coverage of our ongoing research in masks continues:

April 2020: Abhiteja and Abhinav's recent paper evaluating cloth face masks of cadidates during the COVID-19 outbreak becomes the top article on ACS Nano. The article is ranked #1 of all of the ACS Nano articles published to date (#1 out of 8834), and has been covered by over 70 news outlets and tweeted over 1700 times.

February 2020: Manish's paper "Epitaxial Er-doped Y2O3 on Silicon for Quantum Coherent Devices" has been accepted for publication in APL Materials. Congratulations Manish!

January 2020: Priyank will present the Water-to-Cloud project at WASH 2020 on March 28-29 in Osaka, Japan!

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