Source: Stony Brook Magazine — By Lynn Zawie and Jess Stallone, November 7, 2025
Stony Brook University is partnering with Brookhaven National Laboratory and Yale University to build a free-space optical link — a wireless communication system that uses a laser or LED beam to transmit data. Akin to quantum laser Wi-Fi, the link will send entangled light particles through the air between rooftop telescopes to enable secure, high-speed quantum communication.
The project adds a wireless component to America’s largest wired quantum communication network, which already connects Stony Brook, Brookhaven and Columbia University. The expansion includes free-space connections spanning approximately 12 miles from Stony Brook to Brookhaven and more than 30 miles across Long Island Sound toward Yale.
"We are building a super-secure wireless quantum network that connects to our wired system, providing communication that is fast and safe, protected by the laws of physics."
— Eden Figueroa, Stony Brook Presidential Innovation Endowed Professor and Director of the Center for Distributed Quantum Processing
A quantum-laser transmitter, or free-space optical telescope, is being built on the roof of Stony Brook’s Health Sciences Center. Receiver telescopes at Brookhaven and Yale will create a direct channel for entanglement distribution that connects free space to fiber cables. The system is designed to extend secure communication to locations without wired infrastructure, including remote islands and eventually space satellites.
Figueroa holds a patent for technology that stores quantum information at room temperature using atomic systems such as rubidium vapor. Once the system is built, infrared beams will align the telescopes, a timing beam will synchronize their pulses, and entangled photon pairs will be transmitted from Stony Brook to the receiving telescopes at Yale and Brookhaven.
The effort echoes the ambitions of Nikola Tesla’s nearby Wardenclyffe Tower, an early prototype for global wireless communication and power. Both visions seek to reduce reliance on costly physical infrastructure by using the atmosphere for long-distance, high-impact communication.
The project has attracted significant support. In September 2025, Stony Brook received a $300 million New York State investment and a $4 million National Science Foundation grant to establish a Quantum Research and Innovation Hub and support continued growth of the ten-node quantum network.
The existing network spans 170 miles of fiber-optic cable across five public data centers on Long Island. With the wireless link, it is expected to expand to include Yale. The system must overcome humidity, fog, air turbulence and rain while aiming laser signals at 25-inch mirrors across long distances.
To track every moving photon, the network’s data-processing computers must be timed within ten picoseconds — ten-trillionths of a second. Researchers are combining quantum physics, optical engineering and remote-control systems to create the foundation for a future quantum internet.
"We are literally laying the groundwork for a future quantum internet, where information can be transmitted securely and instantaneously over vast distances."
— Rishikesh Gokhale, Stony Brook PhD candidate in classical and quantum optics
The rooftop telescope at Stony Brook is scheduled for installation by spring 2026, with the new wireless connections expected to open by the end of that spring.