Historical research guide · 1157 · 2026

Brookhaven and Stony Brook Researchers Demonstrate 'Wireless' Capability for Quantum Network

Brookhaven National Laboratory · Stony Brook University

In one minute

On 21 August 2026 Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University announced that they had sent light carrying quantum information through open air between the two institutions, across 13 miles, or 21 kilometres, of Long Island. In a daytime demonstration a laser generated quantum states of light with just a few photons each in Stony Brook's rooftop Quantum Watchtower; they left an optical fibre core about 5 microns across and were collected into an equally small fibre in Brookhaven's Quantum Lighthouse. In night-time tests, when background light is lower, the team sent entangled photon pairs over the same free-space link and received and measured them at Brookhaven, with the first detection recorded at 12:26 a.m. on 19 August. The link adds a wireless leg to a fibre quantum network the release describes as spanning 161 miles, and uses astronomy's adaptive optics to correct for turbulent air. A 30-mile leg to Yale across Long Island Sound is next, with satellites as the stated goal.

Connection

The quantum-phase-coherence course teaches that a shared quantum phase is a physical resource that can be carried and used. This link is that resource leaving the laboratory table: entangled photons carried through 21 kilometres of turbulent open air and still measured as entangled at the far end, at wavelengths chosen to match quantum processors rather than telecom fibre.

From the source

The distance and the geometry. Photons left the Quantum Watchtower on the roof of Stony Brook's Health Sciences Center and travelled 13 miles, or 21 kilometres, through open air to the Quantum Lighthouse on the only Brookhaven building with a clear line of sight to Stony Brook, exiting and entering optical fibres with cores about 5 microns in diameter.Paragraphs 3 and 4 of the release
Entanglement over the link. In night-time tests the researchers sent entangled photons from the Stony Brook physics laboratory to the Watchtower by fibre, distributed them across the free-space link, and received and measured them at the Lighthouse; the release's figure caption records the detection at 12:26 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday 19 August, seen as on-phase counts rising above off-phase background counts.Paragraph beginning During nighttime tests; the two data-figure captions
Why open air. Fibre networks are limited to telecom wavelengths; free-space links let researchers use the infrared wavelengths native to quantum processors, and the turbulence between the two sites was handled with adaptive-optics technology drawn from telescope building.Quotations from Eden Figueroa and Justine Haupt; Building the FSO link
What comes next. Yale's facility, the third leg, was recently completed, and the team plans to send entangled photons 30 miles, or 48 kilometres, across Long Island Sound between Stony Brook and Yale, while working toward transmitting quantum information through the atmosphere to orbiting satellites.Looking ahead

The way in

https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=123096

Historical source-access record. This guide links to the original; it does not reproduce the paper text.

WHICH COPY WAS READ. The joint press release published on the Brookhaven National Laboratory newsroom on 21 August 2026, subtitled First-of-its-kind free-space optical link begins quantum entanglement experiments, media contacts Danielle Roedel and Peter Genzer, was fetched on 2026-09-13 from www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=123096 and read in full, including every figure caption and the Looking ahead section. It is a press release from a laboratory operated for the Department of Energy by a contractor, not a peer-reviewed paper, and no rights statement placing it in the public domain was found on the page, so nothing is reproduced beyond short attributed phrases; the summary and claims are the site's own prose. Figures are not reproduced. MATURITY. The demonstration is an institutional announcement of an experiment in progress; no journal article reporting the measurement was located on the page.

How to cite it

Brookhaven National Laboratory, Stony Brook University (2026) Brookhaven and Stony Brook Researchers Demonstrate 'Wireless' Capability for Quantum Network https://www.bnl.gov/newsroom/news.php?a=123096