Hello, and welcome to the 1st Physics World weekly podcast of 2025. I'm Hamish Johnston. The United Nations has proclaimed that 2025 is the international year of Quantum Science and Technology, or IYQ for short. This year was chosen because it marks the centenary of the initial development of quantum mechanics by Werner Heisenberg. In the early days, the quantum world perplexed the physics community with its numerous paradoxes.
A century later, and physicists are much more comfortable in the quantum world. And it's not just physicists. Over the past decade or so, a burgeoning quantum technology business sector has emerged, and engineers, financiers, and others are entering the quantum realm. To kick off IYQ, this podcast features the Turkish physicist Mete Atatore, who is at the UK's University of Cambridge.
In a wide ranging conversation with Physics World's Katherine Skipper, Atatore talks about Quantour, I y q's equivalent to the Olympic torch, and he also talks about his research into quantum sensors and quantum networks. Hello. Welcome to the Physics World Podcast. I'm Katherine Schipper. So last summer was the Paris Olympics, which was marked by the ceremonial relay of the Olympic torch. Now we have to wait another 4 years for the next Olympics, but 2025
is the international year of quantum. And that too will be marked by the relay of, of a of a light source. But because it's the International Year of Quantum, it's going to be a very, very, very small light source. It's going to be a single photon, emitter. It's called, Contour, and it is touring 12 quantum labs around Europe over the course of 12 months. And I am in Cambridge today, visiting Contour, the quantum light source, on its stopover in England.
And I'm joined today in Cambridge by, Mette Asasier, who is, responsible for the light source while it's in England. He's the head of the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge and also the head of the quantum optical materials and systems group. He's also the one of the founders of the quantum networking startup, NuQuantum. So, Messi, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you very much for hitting me.
So first question, can you explain what Contour is about and why it's something you wanted to be involved with here in Cambridge? I like to start with the, the the Paris Olympics and the the Olympic torch. It is in a sense the quantum torch that's going around, Europe. We wanted to be part of it because, we are part of the European, endeavor to achieve, useful operational quantum technologies. And one way or another light, appears in most of these, strands of research that we're pursuing.
So it was important that that that we bring that forward. They, we did have a year of light a few years back. We're going into a year of quantum. So it is natural that we have this this essential part, the optics, the photonics, but in the quantum realm, to be showcased across the Europe, for two reasons. 1, to bring forward, of course, its importance, but also to show that we do interact.
We do form a scientific network, around the concept of quantum light, and how it can impact the various technologies that might come in the future. Yeah. So talking about the technologies, I think the International Year of Quantum and Quantar, I guess, is quite a nice opportunity to showcase to people who don't have, you know, a specialism in physics what quantum science and quantum
technology is about. Do you think that, I guess, the general public and politicians who are making decisions about, you know, quantum technologies and quantum policy know enough about what quantum is and how it could impact them? It's very difficult to know enough of quantum given how counterintuitive it is.
And I think partly we are also to blame as we start most of our descriptions of our work, quantum related work with spooky action at a distance or mind boggling or hard to grasp, hard to understand, completely outside our, conceptions of what world is and reality is. That doesn't particularly help in the direction of, making people aware of what it can do for you as a technology as opposed to very interesting science that you might want to, to study or understand.
So I think what we need to do, especially in the year of quantum, is to have a a change of word, a change of style so that we focus less on the weirdness of quantum, but focus on what it can actually bring us. And this is how you can grab the attention of public, policy makers, and, and more most importantly, the young minds who, might go into this field with an intention to actually do something useful to tackling, challenges that, we might be facing going forward.
Okay. So can you talk a bit about how that relates to your research? What are the quantum technologies that you're looking at? Mhmm. So within my research group, we have a very vibrant team, tackling multiple directions at the same time, that keeps me entertained. Of course, there's not just a one topic that I'm working with. I get to work with, small groups of of, brilliant scientists, on different directions. One of them is quantum sensing and the other one is quantum networks.
So sensing and networks are 22 strands, let's say that, that our work tends to focus on. On the sensing side, we're trying to see if quantum properties of light matter interfaces, objects, small net of nanoscale objects, a single electron in some cases or a single nuclear spin buried inside a material in other cases. Could that and its interaction with light be useful to understand, how materials behave or how different phenomena in physics and sciences in general can emerge?
And having that view at the, at the nanoscale, at the at the ultimate limits or ranges, operational ranges that we don't have access to at the moment. So that's one direction they're pursuing. As very interestingly, as science takes you, to unexpected places, we are also working with quantum sensors
in life sciences. So we have we're looking into how we can incorporate quantum sensors, diamond based quantum sensors in particular, into, into cells, live cells to understand their operations or in larger living organisms like c elegans, for example, to see if we can learn more about their physical properties as they go through a
life cycle. So as long as there's it's it's about the development of a technology with very, very well grounded, physics and quantum physics aspect of it is is what highlights the, the quantum sensing aspect of our work. The second strand of our research is on quantum networks. We're exploring all the way from basic science part of it, the understanding materials, novel materials that could be quite relevant for quantum networks going forward. They may not, the future technologies may not
necessarily rely on silicon. So we're looking at other, platforms to see if there's any advantage if we look at the, these materials from their, devices that leverage their quantum properties. And we actually push this towards technology a bit more, and we're actually building a small scale networks, very primitive, 2 node, maybe if possible 3 node networks where we like to distribute not just information, but quantum information
between these nodes. And we have the ability to actually store it at different nodes and use it when we need to use it. So in a way, you can think of it as quantum networks is there is a communication, concept, but it feeds very closely with, with quantum computing in a in a distributed quantum computing sense. So is the idea with quantum networks that it could one day replace, like, the fiber optic networks that we have now? It would actually not replace it. It
would leverage the fiber optic networks. And that's the there's again the spirit of Contour. Ultimately, whether you work with, with intense lasers or light pulses or you operate at a single photon level, the medium that you'll transport your light, your, your information is going to be the same. It's going
to be the fiber optic network. So that's why we think that it is actually feasible to implement quantum networks because we don't have to replace existing, infrastructure that we can almost leverage the existing infrastructure. Okay. So you're you're sending it across, again, across the fiber optic network, but
you're looking at single photons. Right? So what's the challenge of taking, you know, taking the existing technology and adapting it so that we're looking at single coding information in single photons?
The advantage that we have today on classical, communication is that, as photons are lost in an otherwise intense pulse, that carries some information, a bit 0 or 1, is is the the the light intensity is diminished, throughout the propagation down a optical fiber, you can, at a different let's say, periodically, you can amplify that that signal and continue. The ones, the message, the information one stays 1, 0
stays 0, and you proceed. And you go through a little amplification process, optical amplification. Now when it come down to a single photon, the photon is either there or it's lost. And then when it's lost, the old information is gone. So there's no there's no gradual decline of the, of the quality of the past that carries information. It's a discrete yes, no. We have the information travelling or
we don't have it anymore. So, so then you might want to do, you you might want to do an amplification, that looks at takes care of this. And it turns out that quantum mechanically, we cannot do amplification of information. So what what we're able to do classically, we're actually unable to do quantum mechanically. And that is exactly the reason why single photon level quantum communication is fundamentally secure, that you cannot simply amplify and then tap into it by some, by another means.
That that photon is the only thing that could carry that information. So, so this puts a limit to how far these networks can be distributed. So that's why you need to bring a node instead of an amplifier unit. You need to bring a quantum node, that is shortened or let's say, approximate enough that without significant photon loss, you can trust, transmit information from a to b. And then in the node, you store that information in
something else. Something else that is not prone to loss like photons, but maybe the internal degrees of freedom of an ion, a trapped ion, or or a single atom, or, some defect in a material, for example, hexagon boron nitride or diamond. Okay. So that's something else you're looking at as well, isn't it? How to store information in in different materials. What are the requirements on a material or a system that makes it good at storing quantum information for,
reasonable periods of time? That's a great question. I think this is the question we've been banging our heads, on for a long time now. There it it comes with the, dichotomy, actually. It should be isolated enough that it does not interact with the rest of the universe on its own, but it should be integrated enough to our universe so that I can have direct access to it readily and availability. Right? And and that's that's a contradiction almost. Right?
Either something is well isolated from everything or it isn't. If it is not well isolated, it decoheres very quickly because as as much as I get to talk to this quantum defect, the qubit, the rest of the universe also continues to talk to, the qubit. So creating an environment where the the the qubit is isolated for most parts, except when we are actually interacting with this with this cubit. I think that will be the, the the the material of choice, the actual physical system
of choice. And we do have this available actually. So hence, there is no, winning materials yet. There's no winning material platform. That's why we need to pursue multiple platforms. But the nice thing is that the community, being diverse in terms of which material platform they're they're studying or investigating, we do have a common language. So we do address a a variety of materials and devices and systems with common similar language, which helps build coherence across the community.
Okay. So, actually, what's the the quantum quantum light source? What's that what's that made of? Sure. It's, semiconductor quantum dots. So these are small islands of semiconductors buried inside another semiconductor. Their band gap is different of the 2 materials, types. So it's a material based confinement of, these pairs of, excitons and electron and a whole pair, that we can store inside these little islands. And then the electron and hole, they act like almost like a little atom on their
own. Like the hydrogen atom is a nucleus, a proton and electron around it. You can think, it's it's kind of the same. You have an electron and a positively charged hole, and the 2 basically go around each other. That's one exciton is our quasi particle, and this has certain finite lifetime, usually on a 4 nanosecond or something, so extremely fast. But when they, recombine the electron and the hole combine, the
total charge is 0. Something happens. The total energy goes somewhere and that somewhere is into light. So a single photon is generated per exciton that was stored inside a quantum dot. So what we do is periodically we create an exciton, 1 and only one exciton inside one of these quantum dots. And then they combine, recombine, and then emit a photon, but one and only one photon. And that's why it's a high purity single photon source.
And the photon then instead of being emitted in all random directions, it is funnelled by a a a nanophotonic structure, called the bull's eye structures we call it. It funnels it into efficiently into a a a a basically a fiber optic channel, and then we use the single photon stream, to do communication by encoding information off to
the photons. Okay. And so you you spoke about, you know, re you're reusing fiber optic, like, infrastructure that we already have, and then you're using materials that have very well defined band band caps. And so and and emit photons at very well defined wavelengths. And I know that in fiber optics, there are certain frequencies that are that are used. So it's 15 1500 and 1550 nanometers, right, is the, like, the the standard wavelength of those optics.
And so how do you go about bridging that that, I guess, divide between the materials that you have to use because they have great quantum properties and the wavelengths that you want to use to reuse fiber optic networks? Fantastic question. This is, it's it's always a challenge because that's why
there is no winning materials platform yet. If you're focusing on 1550, there are a couple of, platforms we could use, but they bring their own challenges as to why they're not necessarily the obvious, winners. And then we work with other systems like these, semiconductor quantum dots. They're more mature technology. They've been around for a few decades now. So we've really learned how to make them pristine and good quality. We learn how to mold the light that comes out of them.
So they are very advantageous on the performance of the photon side, but you're right. They don't match the exactly the wavelength of, 1550 of the preferred, emission. So there are 2 ways you can cheat. Right? 1, you, look for the next material and that's part of, scientific research that we do. We, we we don't limit ourselves to a very particular class of material platforms.
We go bold. We go, out there and look for the craziest, materials you can think of, including diamond, including let single monolayer of of, some, semiconductor, 2 d material. And we're we're finding these. Right? So that's, that's one direction, to pursue. That's the exploratory, part. The second, cheating, of course, is I call this cheating, but these are scientific progress, let's call it, is, is frequency conversion. So we have this fantastic tool in our hands called nonlinear optics.
That is where if you have the right medium, a particular, again, material platform that brings not linear optics, but opportunity for nonlinear optics, opportunities for nonlinearities between photons so they can interact and exchange their frequency. Then you can take a 900 nanometer, wavelength light and convert that to 1550 with the help of another, light source. So that appear for what we call a three way mixing or a four way mixing,
geometry. So you can almost, you can cook up the wavelength you want provided you get the photons that normally don't interact with anything to actually directly and strongly interact inside a very special material called chi 3 or chi 2 materials or nonlinear materials. So,
this has been demonstrated. So in in a sense, while we lose a bit the efficiency, because not necessarily a 100% efficient, you do have a chance to take anything you want out there that works really well and convert that to the common frequency of a metropolitan network. Okay. And when when you're actually thinking about building these these systems so you spoke about diamond, and you spoke about hexagonal boron nitride, where you're actually you're using cubits that like,
lattice defects. So, like, almost like like, holes almost or defects in these crystals. And then you also can use, as you spoke about, semiconductor quantum dots. How much control how how much control do you have when you're actually fabricating these systems over where the cubits are? Mhmm. It's, if if you're down to a single atom level, you have to have that precision to actually say, you, atom, move away and then you, atom, go back in there. So that's very difficult.
And we don't have that technology except in a very rare case of, of of scanning tunneling microscope, approaches to constructing a particular device at the atomic level. Professor Simmons in Australia is doing fantastic work on this. She's literally putting atom by atom, construction or engineering of a quantum device, that is that small. It's only a few atoms, wide. But of course,
from one side is a big achievement. From another side, this would be quite challenging to scale up, to make larger devices or bigger devices. What we are doing with the defect based systems is, that we rely on the fact that optically active defects, they'll relevant footprint is actually not the size of a single atom, but the size of your wavelength. Because the the atoms have 2 different length scales. 1 is their physical length scale within a crystal, within a lattice.
That's like of the order of 1 lattice site. But if they're optically active, then their optical cross section is what we call is their physical size that really matters. And that's off order micron or half a micron. So that means it gives us a chance to not be precise exactly which of the lattice sites our defects sits that optically engages with, with the
rest of the world. So that gives us a chance to realize everything we want without having to worry at that length scale of of, a nanometer or or sub nanometer. That's one thing. The advantage for coming back to Contour, it's our this, it's quant quantum torch. The advantage there is that it's actually bulky. It's not a single atomic, system. It's not a single defect based system. It actually is each of these quantum dots, despite the name dot, is actually about 50 to a 100000 atoms cluster.
So if you go back, 2 years, the Nobel Prize in chemistry was for colloidal quantum dots. And these were small, balls of atoms combined into, to form a particular material with discrete energy levels, hence the same concept of, clear single photons. In the same spirit, these are only they're they're embedded inside another semiconductor, but otherwise, they are large bulky systems, and
we know where to put them. So we can actually say, by by pre processing of the of the, surface that we're going to grow the quantum dots, we can actually tell them where to be with very high precision of of order nanometer, few nanometer precision for these rather, large systems. So it does give us this chance to say, to distribute a large scale, let's say, architecture of where these,
special, systems will sit. Okay. And now I wanna talk a little bit about quantum as a technology and as a a commercial, you know, opportunity. I think that's I mean, it the if the International Year of Quantum in 2025, because it's a 100 years since when Heisenberg went to Helgeland to cure his hay fever and wrote down the matrix formalism of of quantum mechanics. But I think it's also been been chosen because quantum has kind of gone mainstream over
the last couple of years. And I'm interested to know from your perspective, how long has it felt like this is a a part of physics that people are really seriously trying to turn into technology and commercialize? I think the the change of language is a good indicator for this as as, we discussed before. We were focusing on how weird it is.
And we're we we thought experiments, real experiments in the lab were mainly to see if quantum mechanics concepts, the philosophy of quantum mechanics, the foundations of quantum mechanics is in in fact, is it valid or not. Right? So that was the starting point for all these. Now if you go back even further, the starting point for quantum physics was, of course, we'll never measure a single electron. Of course, we'll never be able to see this effect. But if we did, how would the experimental
result look like? So it was all like get Duncan experiment, thought experiment. So if so they were in a stage 3 now. The get Duncan experiment has moved into real lab experiments of demonstrating foundations of quantum physics. And now we're in the era of actually turn them into real life feasible operations. Now there's as with most exciting emerging, technologies or potentially emerging technologies, there
will always be hype around. And you'll see you'll see, news pieces where they'll say, headline will say something like quantum of quantum computing will cure cancer. And maybe one day it will, but, but we're not at this stage yet, and that's not the main reason why we put it
all together. I think the what sets quantum technologies unique is that our one leg is still parked firmly at basic sciences and development of that interface of new concepts, new phenomenon, and new material systems that brings together computer scientists, physicists, and material scientists, chemist in some cases, so that we can all inter this in an interdisciplinary way, look at what beneficial directions we can push when it comes to, technology transfer.
Okay. Thinking about quantum network speakers, I know that's one of that's the thing that new quantum is about right about quantum networking. What are the big challenges, outstanding experimental and theoretical challenges to actually bringing that technology to scaling it up and rolling it out on a large scale.
Given that the the whole field, emerged, the experimental side of it, the practical side of it emerged in, physics based research labs with focus on the the the singular unit, the isolated quantum bit. We have a we know our quantum bits really well. We know how to control it. We've improved our techniques, including our material quality. What hasn't been developing so far? What is what is the what what's the what's the challenge that we're facing right now is the interconnects.
It's connecting them together. And that's the scalability that you refer to as well. How to make 1,000 of these? Actually, it is fairly easy to make 1,000 of the same good qubit. It's not the number that stops us. It is linking them so that you benefit. You don't end up with 1,000 independent qubits, but rather a 1,000 qubit system.
And that system, requires their their interaction exchange of, interaction and information, some sort of a network you need to put together regardless of whether it's a quantum computing, monolithic quantum computing you're after, or a a distributed metropolitan size quantum network that you're after, or quantum sensors where we need to make sure that we have direct links to them. Ultimately, the interconnect is going to be the name of the game. So you're talking about entangling?
That's right. So how to sustain quantumness distributed over multiple cubits, multiple nodes, and and ensuring that that is operational, that we can do something with it. And that's that's going to be the challenge. The biggest, challenge in front of us across different platforms, across different approaches, and even technologies that we're aiming for is how to get that, link preferably with light, how to get get that link to be efficient and quantum preserving, let's say.
Okay. And what sort of avenues are you looking at to try and to try and get there? It's very interesting. We're looking at classical avenues. We're looking at ways to make sure that we are not overlooking anything that has been developed on the classical conventional side of photonics and materials, and engineering and systems packaging. All of those which physicists
arguably are not necessarily most accustomed to. All of that is now coming together to say, is there a better way that we could do this rather than a physicist hat, but rather an engineer hat or or a systems hat? Yeah.
I think I've been I was sort of surprised to learn more about us and find that there's a big need for radio frequency engineers because it's still, you know even though we're using the the quantum physics, you're still using, you know, that that radio frequency technology to interface with the quantum system. Absolutely. It's it's a fantastic field to be in because you can be operating, at the far end of the technology delivery where you're building some architecture of quantum computers
with multi qubit systems. You're doing some operations, and you identify what limits you. And you you realize that what limits you is a material property, and it goes all the way back to the, blackboard, the the drawing board. And then and it goes all the way back to the, blackboard, the the drawing board. And then you start, changing the material that you're using in your devices to build up that whole architecture, and you find out things have improved.
So if you don't have that link, if you don't have that conversation, the, you know, bumping shoulders in the hallway with a material scientist and a physicist and a computer scientist, that communication, you're not going to be able to create this, the cycling loop of improvement. So let's think of it as a it's not really a cycle loop. It's more like a spiral upwards that as we tap different aspects, we solve a challenge that's relevant, to certain expertise,
and then we go forward with it. Okay. And I was interested to hear the way you spoke about the the quantum weirdness and how
that has shifted. Because I think if we are thinking about it being the international quantum and looking back a 100 years to the early days of quantum mechanics, I think it is easy to, if you're not an expert, look at all the stuff that's been done or been that is being done with quantum technologies and think that those fundamental questions that were being asked a 100 years ago have been resolved, and we're just trying to work at how to, you know, commercialize,
you know, the the theory, basically. But, actually, all of the questions about, you know, what quantum mechanics means and how it should interpret it and what it means for understanding of reality, a lot of that is I mean, all of that really is still up in the air, and it's still being debated. You know, the the fact that or the the mainstream interpretation of quantum mechanics that, you know, the state of an object is is not in a definite
state until you measure it. Is that something that you that sort of uncomfortable weirdness? Because because it is. It sort of defies it defies human comprehension, I think, in a way, when you really think about it. Is that something that you think about in your work and see yourself as looking into? Absolutely. It it it is again what sets, this area, is is a bit unique. We're more used
to the production line concept. Right? They you start from the very beginning, the concept, and then you you make a prototype, you you you develop it and it continues. So it's almost like, if if I talk in TRL language, you start from TRL 1 and go on to the the final product and you and and it's it's now in the system. Quantum mechanics is not like that. Quantum mechanics delivers advantages in certain areas, and we're pushing that
forward as a technology. And at the same time, it doesn't include as a theory, gravity. So I don't know what to do. Right? At the same time, I'm fundamentally limited with what I have, and I know that it's not complete.
But in in in in the phase space that quantum physics covers, there are safe areas that we can tap into to convert them into technology without necessarily understanding its full scope and how it will have to be transformed in the future to be an overarching theory beyond everything else that that, harbors all phenomena that we see today. But, yeah, it's, even today, the technological push, say for example, space. Right? Space is the next frontier for us.
We're talking about secure communications in space. One reason, of course, you could say is purely technological and applications. But another reason is to say, does the the concept of entanglement, long distance entanglement, and the the scoop spooky action in the distance, idea of, mention of, Einstein, does that hold over long distances? That's a question to ask because on short distance is fine, but long enough distances where relativity kicks in, special or general relativity kicks in, do
we actually see an effect of this? Does gravity actually take part in determining what happens to the entanglement that was distributed? Quantum theory says that there's no mention of the distance d between 2 objects. Reality needs to be checked. So, some people are designing this very technologically advanced experiments to actually test entanglement over very long distances, you know, space, space like distance. So, again, it goes both ways.
We will develop the theory more, hopefully, and it it there is room to go, but it shouldn't necessarily stop us using the parts we know are working well. Okay. Yeah. It is pretty amazing that a lot of the a lot of this quantum technology is based on theory that when it was first sort of conceived, the the the the understanding was, well, this is this is cool, but we'll never ever be able to measure it or test it. You know, we can't we can't get enough control over,
you know, over quantum objects. And now we kind of we can just do it. I mean, I've, you know, been downstairs, and I've seen the lab where, you know, you're just you're just doing that as your everyday job. It's really cool. So just to sort of round off, we've talked about sort of the the present of of quantum technologies and the past of quantum theory. What are your hopes for the next couple of years of quantum and quantum technologies?
I think next couple of years 2 years is is is a short time time frame, of course. The the 2 years is within a PhD. So this would be difficult to to expect big leaps within 2 years. But, of course, leaps come in effectively instantaneously, having leveraged the years years decades in some cases of research. And then you get the big leap. So I expect, clear progress in scaling, when it comes to, quantum computing activities.
I expect the first, well, we do have a a 3 node quantum network in Europe, and it's diamond based, interestingly. It's located in the Netherlands. I do expect, similar quantum networks to actually be commissioned and operational, in many other places. So this is around this this time. And it seems like in almost all of these attempts at the moment, diamond seems to be a material of choice, which we wouldn't have guessed, 20 years ago, for example.
So I can see again, we'll be more in the in line of translation towards bit more operationally sensible, operationally interesting, modes of what we have, already. But of course breakthroughs happen because, an idea comes when you're at the unexpected talk at the, you know,
annual conference, for example. And, the the progress is so fast now, as opposed to many, many decades ago, that translation of an idea, a new concept that comes in to realizing it as proof of principle is actually can be quite fast given all the all the experience that we managed to put together in this interdisciplinary, community that we built over the years. Okay. So it sounds like you're open to surprises in the next couple of weeks. Okay. Well, thank you so much for for joining me
today. That was Messe Assessure. And, yeah, thank you very much for for speaking with me. It was great to talk. It was a great pleasure. Thank you for, having me. That was the University of Cambridge's Mettetatore in conversation with Physics World's Katherine Schipper. Stay tuned to the Physics World website for lots more quantum science and technology coverage this year.
A good place to start is Bob Kreese's feature article that looks back on the summer of 1925, when the allergy prone Werner Heisenberg traveled to the tiny North Sea island of Helgoland for a pollen free holiday. It was there that the 23 year old formulated matrix mechanics, which was the first consistent mathematical formulation of quantum physics. The article sets the scene on the windswept island and ponders what was going through Heisinsberg's mind as he had his quantum revelation.
And it also explains how his ideas have changed physics forever. Helgoland will be hosting a workshop in June of this year to celebrate the birth of quantum physics. And Kries also profiles some of the high profile scientists who will be there. You can find that article on the Physics World website. Just look for the headline return to Helgoland celebrating 100 years of quantum mechanics. I'm afraid that's all the time we have for this week's podcast.
Thanks to Mette Atatore and Katherine Skipper for a fascinating conversation. And thanks to our producer Fred Iles. This podcast returns next week, but until then, we wish you a happy international year of quantum science and technology.