Reviewed by Frances BriggsDec 11 2025
A new review captures two decades of advances showing how high-dimensional photons are reshaping how we transmit, compute, and measure information.
Study: Progress in quantum structured light. Image Credit: Juri V/Shutterstock.com
Quantum structured light is emerging as a powerful way to boost how much information photons can carry by shaping their spatial, temporal, and polarization properties. The study, published in Nature Photonics, highlights major advances that could strengthen secure communications, speed up quantum computing, and improve high-resolution imaging.
Researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa compiled a review of the most recent developments in quantum structured light.
This burgeoning area enhances the capacity of light to convey information and holds promise in applications in more secure communications, accelerated quantum computing, and highly sensitive detection systems.
A global consortium of researchers, which includes scientists from the UAB, has released a study regarding a burgeoning field that is revolutionizing the methods of communication, measurement, and information processing: quantum structured light.
Quantum structured light combines quantum information with the spatial and temporal properties of light, yielding photons with an unparalleled capacity for information.
The authors emphasize that by manipulating various degrees of freedom of light, including polarization, spatial modes, and frequency, it is possible to generate high-dimensional quantum states.
In this context, the well-known qubits (which are two-dimensional and consist of photons in superposition of two quantum states) evolve into qudits (which possess more than two dimensions).
These characteristics present new possibilities across numerous fields. In quantum communications, for instance, security is enhanced due to a greater information capacity per photon, and the potential for multiple simultaneous communication channels is introduced, along with improved error tolerance and noise resistance.
Regarding quantum computing, structured light facilitates the creation of simpler and faster circuits, enabling the generation of states for intricate simulations.
It can help create a route to significant progress in imaging and metrology, featuring enhanced resolution techniques – exemplified by the recent innovation of the holographic quantum microscope, which enables the capture of images of delicate biological specimens – as well as ultrasensitive sensors that make use of quantum correlations.
The structured light permits the simulation of complex quantum systems to forecast interactions between molecules and networks, holding promise for the development of new materials.
Professor Andrew Forbes, the corresponding author from the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, notes that the field has undergone significant changes over the past two decades.
The tailoring of quantum states, where quantum light is engineered for a particular purpose, has gathered pace of late, finally starting to show its full potential. Twenty years ago the toolkit for this was virtually empty. Today we have on-chip sources of quantum structured light that are compact and efficient, able to create and control quantum states.
Andrew Forbes, Professor and Study Corresponding Author, University of the Witwatersrand
Despite progress being made in the quantum structured light, issues still stand between its widespread success. The distance reached with structured light, both classical and quantum, is still very low.
We are at a turning point: quantum structured light is no longer just a scientific curiosity, but a tool with real potential to transform communication, computing, and image processing.
Adam Vallés, Researcher, Department of Physics, Optics Group, UAB
Journal Reference:
Forbes, A., et al. (2025) Progress in quantum structured light. Nature Photonics. DOI:10.1038/s41566-025-01795-x. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41566-025-01795-x