Volkan Gurses

Caltech [email protected] 1200 E California Blvd, Pasadena, CA 91125

MIT [email protected] 50 Vassar St, Bldg 36, Cambridge, MA 02139

NVIDIA [email protected] 2788 San Tomas Expy, Santa Clara, CA 95051

I am a recent PhD in Electrical Engineering and Physics from Caltech, a Postdoctoral Researcher at MIT/Caltech, and a Visiting Researcher at NVIDIA. I am also the founder of Foundation, where we are building a semiconductor IP platform toward universal compute. My goal is to build information technologies that operate at the fundamental physical limits.

Research: My research studies the fundamental physical limits of information technologies (the Landauer, Holevo, and Heisenberg limits) and builds integrated systems that move toward them. One direction is quantum phased arrays, the first free-space sensors and transceivers for non-classical light. I demonstrated a 32-channel silicon photonic-electronic receiver that uses squeezed light to surpass the standard quantum limit, performing free-space quantum imaging, beamforming, and beamsteering, with the Heisenberg limit as the longer-term target. Another is quantum coherent transceivers. I demonstrated a squeezed-light link that exceeds the one-quadrature Shannon capacity together with a 32-channel coherent receiver array, and proposed an architecture with a path toward Holevo-limited communication and, coupled with efficient processors, toward the Landauer limit of computing. For an overview of these projects, see my research page.

Background: I received my PhD in Electrical Engineering and Physics and MS in Electrical Engineering from Caltech, and my BS in Electrical Engineering from Georgia Tech. My work has been recognized with the Caltech Entrepreneurship Prize (first place, with Foundation), the Broadcom Innovation Fund, the Carver Mead New Adventures Fund, and a Cell Press Rising Star selection. The full list of awards and fellowships is on my CV.

news

Apr 24, 2026	I defended my PhD thesis, Information technologies at the fundamental physical limits. The recording, slides, and interactive tools are available here.
Apr 15, 2026	My startup Foundation won first place in the Caltech Entrepreneurship Prize.
Apr 08, 2026	Our preprint Quantum coherent transceivers toward Holevo-limited communications is now on arXiv.

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selected publications

Thesis

Information technologies at the fundamental physical limits

Volkan Gurses

California Institute of Technology, Apr 2026

DOI Bib HTML

@phdthesis{GursesThesis2026,
  author = {Gurses, Volkan},
  title = {Information technologies at the fundamental physical limits},
  school = {California Institute of Technology},
  month = apr,
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.7907/qhb7-ew96},
}

arXiv
Quantum coherent transceivers toward Holevo-limited communications

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

Apr 2026

Abs DOI arXiv Bib

The Holevo limit bounds the channel capacity of a communication channel in which information is encoded in quantum states in a Hilbert space at the transmitter and decoded using quantum measurements at the receiver. Saturating the Holevo limit requires quantum-limited transceivers that either generate quantum states of light or employ quantum-limited measurements. Here, we demonstrate an integrated photonic-electronic quantum-limited coherent receiver (QRX) achieving 14.0 dB shot noise clearance (SNC), 520 μW knee power, 2.57 GHz 3-dB bandwidth, 3.50 GHz shot-noise-limited bandwidth, and 90.2 dB common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR). We scale this design to a 32-channel QRX array with median 26.6 dB SNC, and automatic CMRR correction yielding a median 76.8 dB CMRR at minimum. Using the integrated QRX and fiber-optic transmitter, we measure 0.15 ± 0.01 dB of squeezing below the shot noise limit, limited by off-chip losses. We propose a squeezed light communication scheme that can surpass the Shannon limit, with a path toward the Holevo limit.
@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, Jul 2025

Abs DOI Bib HTML

Quantum science and technology can offer fundamental enhancements in sensing, communications and computing. The expansion from wired to wireless links is an exciting prospect for quantum technologies. For classical technologies, the advent of phased arrays enabled directional and adaptive wireless links by manipulating electromagnetic waves over free space. Here we demonstrate a phased array system on a chip that can receive, image and manipulate non-classical light over free space. We use an integrated photonic-electronic system with more than 1000 functional components on-chip to detect squeezed light. By integrating an array of 32 sub-wavelength engineered metamaterial antennas, we demonstrate a direct free-space-to-chip interface for reconfigurable quantum links. On the same chip, we implement a large-scale array of quantum-limited coherent receivers that can resolve non-classical signals simultaneously across 32 channels. With coherent readout and manipulation of these signals, we demonstrate 32-pixel imaging and spatially configurable reception of squeezed light over free space. Our work advances wireless quantum technologies that could enable practical applications in quantum communications and sensing.
@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 = jul, year = {2025}, volume = {16}, number = {6849}, doi = {10.1038/s41467-025-61886-9}, 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, Nov 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},
  month = nov,
  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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in the media

Caltech Science Exchange Quantum computers, explained through music (#AskCaltech) Apr 2026 Caltech Science Exchange Quantum computers and the future of encryption (#AskCaltech) Jan 2026 The Quantum Insider Quantum Wi-Fi Future: Quantum Tech Could Power Super-Secure Wireless Communication Jul 2024

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