Volkan Gurses

1200 E California Blvd

Pasadena, CA 91125

I am a PhD candidate in Electrical Engineering and Physics at Caltech. My goal is to build technologies that operate at the fundamental physical limits.

Research: My research focuses on studying the fundamental physical limits of technologies (e.g. Landauer, Bekenstein, Holevo limits) and developing technologies that operate at these limits. To that end, I invented various technologies that push current devices to these limits by leveraging concepts from fundamental physics. One example is quantum phased arrays that demonstrated the first free-space sensor and transceiver that can operate at the Heisenberg limit (overcoming the standard quantum limit) and the first free-space interface for quantum information. I also invented quantum coherent transceivers that can operate at the Holevo limit (overcoming the Shannon limit) and put together a roadmap to couple these transceivers with efficient processors to push computing to the Landauer limit.

Previously: I received my Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Caltech and Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech. I was an awardee of the Caltech Entrepreneurship Prize, Broadcom Innovation Fund, Carver Mead New Adventures Fund, R. David Middlebrook Fellowship, Tau Beta Pi Fellowship, IEEE MTT-S Undergraduate/Pre-Graduate Scholarship, European Union Contest for Young Scientists CERN Special Donated Prize and First Prize in Physics in the Turkish National Secondary School Research Contest.

news

Jan 08, 2026	I was selected as a rising star by Cell Press.
Dec 08, 2025	I gave an invited seminar at MIT EECS.
Dec 05, 2025	I gave an invited seminar at Harvard SEAS.

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selected publications

Quantum coherent transceivers toward Holevo-limited communications

Volkan Gurses, Suraj Samaga, Elianna Kondylis, and 1 more author

Apr 2026

DOI Bib

@article{QCT2026,
  author = {Gurses, Volkan and Samaga, Suraj and Kondylis, Elianna and Hajimiri, Ali},
  title = {Quantum coherent transceivers toward Holevo-limited communications},
  year = {2026},
  month = apr,
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.07087},
  doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2604.07087},
}

NatComm

An on-chip phased array for non-classical light

Volkan Gurses, Samantha I. Davis, Raju Valivarthi, and 3 more authors

Nature Communications, Jun 2025

DOI Bib

@article{NatComm2025,
  author = {Gurses, Volkan and Davis, Samantha I. and Valivarthi, Raju and Sinclair, Neil and Spiropulu, Maria and Hajimiri, Ali},
  journal = {Nature Communications},
  title = {An on-chip phased array for non-classical light},
  month = jun,
  year = {2025},
  volume = {16},
  number = {6849},
  doi = {10.1038/s41467-025-61886-9},
  dimensions = {true},
}

Free-space quantum information platform on a chip

Volkan Gurses, Samantha I. Davis, Neil Sinclair, and 2 more authors

Jun 2024

DOI Bib

@article{Nat2025,
  title = {Free-space quantum information platform on a chip},
  author = {Gurses, Volkan and Davis, Samantha I. and Sinclair, Neil and Spiropulu, Maria and Hajimiri, Ali},
  year = {2024},
  url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.09158},
  doi = {10.48550/arXiv.2406.09158},
  dimensions = {true},
}

JSTQE

Large-scale crosstalk-corrected thermo-optic phase shifter arrays in silicon photonics

Volkan Gurses, Reza Fatemi, Aroutin Khachaturian, and 1 more author

IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, Jun 2022

DOI Bib

@article{JSTQE2022,
  author = {Gurses, Volkan and Fatemi, Reza and Khachaturian, Aroutin and Hajimiri, Ali},
  journal = {IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics},
  title = {Large-scale crosstalk-corrected thermo-optic phase shifter arrays in silicon photonics},
  year = {2022},
  volume = {28},
  number = {6: High Density Integrated Multipurpose Photonic Circuits},
  pages = {1-9},
  doi = {10.1109/JSTQE.2022.3189965},
  dimensions = {true},
}

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