On June 30, the launch meeting for the National Key Science and Technology Project “Generation, Diagnosis and Control of Attosecond Pulses Driven by Quantum Light Sources” was held at the Guangdong Technion – Israel Institute of Technology (GTIIT). This project is a publicly competitive project under the national science and technology major special program "Quantum Communication and Quantum Computers" of the Ministry of Science and Technology for the year 2025, and has been awarded a funding of 18 million RMB. Led by GTIIT, the consortium includes Peking University, East China Normal University, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, Yunnan University, and the Innovation Academy for Precision Measurement Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

At the meeting, Prof. Oren Cohen, project leader, Optica Fellow, head of the GTIIT Physics Program, welcomed all experts and thanked Academician Gong Xingao for organizing and promoting this project. He said major scientific research needs both in-depth study of frontier scientific problems and cooperation across different universities and fields. As a young Chinese-foreign cooperative university, it is a great opportunity for GTIIT to lead this national major project. He hopes to work with excellent researchers from top research institutions to achieve shared research goals.

Prof. Moris S. Eisen, Pro-Vice Chancellor of GTIIT, said that quantum information technology is a key frontier in global technological competition. Focusing on new interdisciplinary research, this project has great development potential. “We aim to build a research team with both theoretical and practical abilities, produce high-quality research results, and offer Chinese wisdom and solutions for the development of global quantum information.”

At the following meeting, each project leader presented their research plans. Discussions focused on four main topics: measurement and control of quantum properties of HHG in gas phase, measurement and control of quantum properties of HHG in solid phase, measurement of quantum correlation in HHG, and theory and simulation of intense quantum light-matter interaction.

This project brings together top domestic researchers in strong-field quantum optics. The team has rich research experience in these fields. In the past five years, its members have published 6 papers in Nature or Science, 32 papers in their sister journals, and 31 papers in Physical Review Letters (PRL). Supported by research platforms including the Attosecond Quantum Optics Group at GTIIT, the Ultrafast Optics Laboratory of the State Key Laboratory for Artificial Microstructure and Mesoscopic Physics at Peking University, and the State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy at East China Normal University, the project aims to shift the research paradigm from classical attosecond physics to attosecond quantum optics. It will lay a solid foundation for high-resolution ultrafast precision measurement and the development of next-generation quantum information technology.

Prof. Gong Xingao of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said, as a young university with distinctive educational features, this is the first time GTIIT has taken the lead in undertaking a major national-level project. In this emerging frontier of international quantum technology research, he called for collaborative efforts to build this area into an internationally leading academic hub.