At UC Riverside, physicists have discovered how to move quantum wave functions across ultra-thin materials with the flick of a voltage switch—a breakthrough that could reshape how we capture solar energy and build quantum computers decades from now.
The discovery centers on vibronics, a field that explores how vibrations shape the behavior of quantum particles in materials. Nathaniel Gabor, a professor of physics and astronomy and director of UC Riverside's Center for Quantum Vibronics in Energy and Time (QuVET), leads a team that recently published three papers—all designated as Editors' Suggestions—showing that control over quantum wave functions is no longer theoretical. It's experimentally real.
The implications matter because nature has been doing this for billions of years. In photosynthesis, light creates a quantum excitation that travels through plant molecules until it reaches a reaction center, where it converts into usable energy. Plants lose virtually no energy to heat in this process. Synthetic solar cells, by contrast, waste significant power this way. Understanding the quantum mechanics behind photosynthesis could help engineers design solar panels that work with near-biological efficiency.
In one study published in Physical Review Letters, Gabor's team showed they could apply an electric field to a two-layer device made of atomically thin materials and precisely control where a positively charged quantum wave function resided. "The wave function could be shifted into the first layer, the second layer, or exist in both layers simultaneously—a phenomenon known as quantum superposition," Gabor explained. "We found that this quantum 'balancing act' directly altered the optical properties of the material."
What makes this remarkable is the scale of control. These devices are only a few atoms thick. Yet by applying voltages and currents, researchers can now decide whether a quantum wave function stays put, jumps to an adjacent layer, or hovers in both places at once—something Gabor notes would have seemed impossible just two decades ago.
The two related studies, published in Physical Review B and Physical Review Letters and led by Gabor's colleagues Xiaoyang Zhu and Eric Arsenault at Columbia University, explore how to manipulate these quantum states further. Together, the three papers establish new device architectures and measurement techniques that open possibilities for energy conversion technologies and quantum computing applications that don't yet exist.
The ultimate goal is to create what Gabor calls "quantum vibronic switches"—devices where crystal vibrations act as control knobs, turning quantum transitions on and off at will. If scientists can harness vibrations to control whether energy gets extracted or lost as heat, they could unlock a new generation of solar cells that work more like leaves than like today's silicon panels.
QuVET, established two years ago, brings together physicists, chemists, engineers, and biochemists from multiple institutions to study these phenomena in both biological molecules and synthetic layered materials. The diversity of the team reflects a fundamental insight: the quantum processes that govern energy transfer look the same whether they're happening inside a chloroplast or inside a laboratory-built device measuring just nanometers across.
The road from laboratory discovery to commercial technology typically spans decades. But the fact that researchers can now experimentally control quantum wave functions in ways once considered impossible suggests that the future of solar technology and quantum computing may be closer than we think.