The Governors of the University of Calgary

Purpose

The global effort to develop scalable quantum networks requires platforms that combine long coherence times with strong and controllable coupling to photonic circuits—capabilities that existing atomic and solid-state systems can only partially provide. While warm/cold atomic gases and single-atom traps offer excellent coherence, they are difficult to integrate into compact photonic systems, and solid-state colour centres face challenges such as phonon sidebands, spectral diffusion, or the need for sub-Kelvin temperatures. Molecular systems, and lanthanide complexes in particular, offer a transformative opportunity: their local chemical environment can be precisely engineered to minimize decoherence, suppress non-radiative decay, and support both ensemble-based quantum memories and singleemitter qubits. Early demonstrations of long optical and spin coherence in lanthanide complexes highlight the strong potential of this emerging platform for quantum networking, sensing, and communication.