Dr. Michał Parniak and his team from the University of Warsaw’s Faculty of Physics have built a quantum memory, which stores and processes photons, that is three times faster than the same technology developed by the Chinese.

Dr Maciej Kawęcki, vice-rector for innovation at a banking university in Warsaw, said: “A Pole has created the fastest quantum memory on Earth!”

“It is hard for the average person to imagine speeds approaching the speed of light or the size of atoms and how they behave in specific conditions. Dr. Parniak has managed to tame them in a sense.

“In simple terms, a cloud of atoms was prepared in a vacuum that absorbs light, i.e. photons. The memory is able to remember and process a record number of photons.

“So a kind of quantum processor was created, which is useful, for example, in quantum communication.

“The point is that information can be transmitted in the spectrum of light, [which] is emitted by all objects, and we can read it effectively.”

Dr Parniak’s breakthrough has huge implications for the field of quantum communication and could help further secure data transmission.

The technology can also be used to read information about the elemental makeup of stars when studying spectrum light from distant constellations.

In 2016, while still a doctoral student, the scientist and his team started work on quantum memory. Unknown to them, the Chinese were also working on this type of memory, only with a much bigger budget.

The Polish research results were eventually published in a prestigious science journal called Nature Communications and blew the world of science away.

In 2022, Dr Parniak was awarded the Frank Wilczek Prize in Physics for his already impressive developments in quantum computing.