{"id":645976,"date":"2026-08-19T19:29:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T19:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/645976\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T19:29:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T19:29:21","slug":"quantum-entanglement-generated-from-sunlight-for-the-first-time-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/645976\/","title":{"rendered":"Quantum Entanglement Generated From Sunlight For The First Time Ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

Entanglement<\/a> is one of the best tricks<\/a> in the quantum physics magic box, two particles that are inextricably linked when measured \u2013 a key component of potential advances in computing, communication, and sensing technologies.<\/p>\n

Scientists have a variety of methods to create entangled particles, often using light particles (photons). The standard way of entangling photons<\/a> is to fire a high-energy laser<\/a> into a specially configured crystal.<\/p>\n

It’s a reliable and well-established method \u2013 and also one that demands energy, and of course access to an advanced laser.<\/p>\n

Now researchers from the University of Ottawa in Canada and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light in Germany have done what some had considered impossible: generated entangled photons from sunlight.<\/p>\n

\"Photon<\/p>\n

The photon entangling setup. (Li et al., Optica, 2026)<\/p>\n

Publishing their work in Optica<\/a>, the team says the innovation could lead to entanglement technology cheaper and easier to deploy in “resource-restricted environments”, from remote research stations to satellites in orbit.<\/p>\n

“Our work shows that abundant natural light sources can be used for quantum entanglement<\/a>, opening the possibility of more energy-efficient and accessible quantum technologies,” says<\/a> physicist Cheng Li, from the University of Ottawa.<\/p>\n

The researchers were encouraged by earlier experiments showing that entangled photons could be produced by LED light<\/a>, suggesting that incoherent<\/a> light \u2013 light without the synchronicity and uniformity of lasers \u2013 had potential for triggering this process.<\/p>\n

\n

“Some world-renowned researchers in the field even questioned whether it would be possible.”<\/p>\n

\u2013 Physicist Cheng Li<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The experimental setup included a window-sized Fresnel lens and a funnel that concentrated collected sunlight into an optical fiber the width of a human hair.<\/p>\n

The focused light was then shone on a crystal to do the actual entangling.<\/p>\n

\"YouTube<\/p>\n

To address the incoherent (or ‘messy’) characteristics of the sunlight, including its direction and wavelength, the team focused on its polarization: the orientation of its oscillating electromagnetic field.<\/p>\n

By entangling this characteristic in particular, the device ensured the surrounding messiness of the light didn’t fundamentally prevent polarization entanglement.<\/p>\n

“We designed our experimental setup so that differences introduced by the different colors and propagation directions didn’t influence the photons’ polarization,” says<\/a> Li.<\/p>\n

“As our theory predicts, if the entanglement lives only in polarization, then it should only depend on the pump’s orderliness in its oscillation direction and not on its direction or color.<\/p>\n

“This allowed us to produce high-quality polarization entanglement from highly spatially and temporally incoherent sunlight.”<\/p>\n

\"Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n

The entangled photons the team produced passed several important quantum physics tests.<\/p>\n

The particles were about 94 percent similar to a perfectly entangled state, and violated Bell’s inequality<\/a> \u2013 a standard sign that their correlations could not be explained by classical physics.<\/p>\n

Once entangled photons are created, they can retain their intrinsic link even when separated by enormous distances. In principle, that could mean linking giant telescopes, for instance, or communications that can’t be intercepted<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“This technology could one day enable satellites to create secure encryption<\/a> keys using the sunlight already abundant in space, reducing the need for onboard lasers and much of the supporting hardware,” says<\/a> Li.<\/p>\n

“Sunlight-driven entanglement generation could also provide the crucial ingredient needed to scale up quantum computing<\/a> without adding to the energy burden.”<\/p>\n

\"Researchers<\/p>\n

Using a new cone-shaped solar concentrator, researchers showed that sunlight can be used to create entangled photons. (Florian Sterl<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The researchers are calling this a “proof-of-principle demonstration”: We don’t yet have a fully working sunlight-powered quantum entangler that can be shipped around the world or packaged into other technology.<\/p>\n

It’s a promising breakthrough, however, as a completely new kind of pump source for entangling photons<\/a>. The quality of the entanglement can be further improved, the researchers say, as can the brightness \u2013 essentially the rate at which entangled photons are produced.<\/p>\n

Related: <\/strong>We May Already Have The First Hints of Quantum Gravity \u2013 Hiding in Plain Sight<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

This is also more evidence of how important persistence can be when it comes to science in the quantum realm. Big steps forward can often be theorized a long time before<\/a> the practical proof arrives.<\/p>\n

“Some world-renowned researchers in the field even questioned whether it would be possible to detect any photons \u2013 not to mention entangled photons \u2013 from sunlight-driven nonlinear optical processes,” says<\/a> Li.<\/p>\n

“We trusted our calculations, continued improving the experimental setup, and eventually showed that it was possible.”<\/p>\n

The research has been published in Optica<\/a>.<\/p>\n

ScienceAlert stories are written, fact-checked, and edited by humans, never generated by AI. Don’t miss a story, subscribe here.<\/a><\/p>\n

Related News<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Entanglement is one of the best tricks in the quantum physics magic box, two particles that are inextricably…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":645977,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[271],"tags":[273415,18,273414,50863,273417,19,17,273416,452,1098,133,262887],"class_list":["post-645976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-physics","tag-cheng-li","tag-eire","tag-entangled-particles","tag-entanglement","tag-experimental-setup","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-light-particles","tag-physics","tag-quantum-physics","tag-science","tag-university-of-ottawa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117123834371480392","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=645976"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645976\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/645977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}