News

Heriot-Watt University recently welcomed industry leaders, researchers and government stakeholders to the Edinburgh Quantum & Photonics Showcase on the 3rd of November 2025 at the National Robotarium. The event highlighted Scotland’s strengths and capabilities in quantum technologies, advanced photonics and the space ecosystem, with a strong emphasis on collaboration, shared facilities and commercialisation pathways. Among the contributors from our group were:

• Professor Brian Gerardot and Dr Nick Werren, who presented on accelerating commercialisation and routes from research excellence to market-ready innovation.
• Dr Samer Kurdi, who introduced the Quantum Magnetometry Facility (QMF) and outlined plans for its use, highlighting the facility’s strengths, its role within the wider Edinburgh research cluster and opportunities for partners to access expertise, talent and equipment.
• Professor Cristian Bonato, who presented on the Q-BIOMED Hub, showcasing new capabilities at the intersection of quantum science and biomedicine, particularly advances in earlier disease diagnosis and treatment, and the potential for new industrial collaborations across health and biotech sectors.

Across the day, speakers emphasised shared research strengths, access to highly skilled talent pipelines, and the benefits of Scotland’s integrated quantum and photonics cluster, which enables collaboration through research partnerships, consultancy, co-development projects, and innovation support services. The Showcase reinforced the strong commitment across the region to translate world-class research into real-world impact, fostering a thriving and globally connected technology ecosystem.

Welcome to our three new post-docs, all of whom are very familiar with the QPL group. Dr. Art returns as a postdoctoral researcher to develop new fabrication capabilities and to fabricate novel two-dimensional materials and devices. Sheena and Fred have completed their PhD theses and are now beginning postdoctoral research in engineering scalable photon-mediated interactions in semiconductor quantum dots and interfacing quantum dot single-photon sources with rare-earth ion doped quantum memories respectively. A huge ‘welcome back’ to all of you!

The sun was shining over North Berwick helping to make it a great day learning the ropes of various Scottish Highland Games activities with Wild Cairns… even if some of us took the scoring a bit too seriously!
(…Team MacDonald was robbed…!).

Dr. Samer Kurdi has joined us as an Assistant Professor. His focus is on spin and charge mapping in the nanoscale using spins in diamond. A huge welcome to the QPL group, Samer!

We have several funded PhD positions available, through Heriot-Watt’s own PhD School, or through the new Centre for Doctoral Training in Applied Quantum Technologies. Get in touch if you are interested!
For more information, see the Heriot-Watt PhD School or the AQT CDT.

A quantum light source that’s travelling across 12 countries in Europe with UNESCO has arrived at Heriot-Watt University – its only Scottish stop on the tour! We’re excited to share that our Edinburgh campus is hosting the QuanTour – which aims to raise interest in quantum physics ahead of next year’s UNESCO International Year of Quantum Science and Technology 2025. The QuanTour arrived at our Quantum Photonics Lab (QPL) yesterday which is led by Professor Brian Gerardot: “We’re very excited to be hosting the QuanTour light source. It’s a great opportunity to connect with the research community in this area and also to celebrate the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. Heriot-Watt has been at the forefront of this field of quantum optics for more than 25 years and a lot of the technology behind the quantum light source has been developed here and in the other laboratories taking part.”
PhD students Fred and Sheena did a fantastic job of organising a traditional Scottish welcoming event for the QuanTour, which of course included piping in the quantum light source! The UNESCO International Year of Quantum Science and Technology 2025 is a year-long, worldwide initiative to increase public awareness about the importance of quantum science and its applications.

Recently Dr. Muhammad, Fred, and Finley, along with Dr. Will McCutcheon and Annameng Mariana Ma from the BBQLab, had the opportunity to present their work and discuss quantum science with the UK Minister for Science, Lord Vallance, at the University of Edinburgh.
They each presented a poster and spoke with the minister directly, providing Lord Vallance with the opportunity to meet our early career researchers working in the field of quantum computing and its applications. It was a great day of collaboration, innovation, and all things quantum!

QPL Researchers from Left - Finley, Fred and Muhammad