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Physicists at The City College of New York (CCNY) demonstrated coherent conversion of a microwave signal into an optical signal using chromium sulfide bromide (CrSBr), a layered antiferromagnetic semiconductor. Microwave-driven magnetic waves in the crystal modulated its optical response, producing light sidebands that tracked the microwave drive. It is a promising materials-platform result, not a demonstration of individual quantum-state transfer between a processor and a fiber network.
How does CrSBr convert microwaves into light?
The process links collective magnetic motion in CrSBr to the material’s response to light. The CCNY team drove the crystal’s antiferromagnetic resonance with microwaves. This made its magnetic moments move collectively, producing magnons—quantized excitations of that collective motion.
Those magnons coupled to excitons, bound pairs of electrons and holes that interact with light. The coupling modulated the excitonic susceptibility, or how the material responds to light near an exciton resonance. As a result, reflected laser light acquired coherent optical sidebands: shifted-frequency components that followed the microwave drive. The researchers detected the signal with homodyne interferometry.
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Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →In short, the microwave drive did not simply turn into a beam of light by itself. It set magnetic motion in the crystal, and magnon–exciton coupling carried that modulation into the optical signal.
What did the experiment demonstrate?
- Material: CrSBr, a layered antiferromagnetic semiconductor.
- Output: Coherent optical sidebands tracking the microwave drive.
- Frequency range: The conversion worked over an approximately 300 MHz microwave window, according to CCNY’s September 17, 2026 announcement.
- Tuning: An applied magnetic field tuned the operating frequency.
- Setup: The effect was observed in a bulk crystal without an optical or microwave resonator boosting the interaction.
The peer-reviewed study, “Microwave-to-optical transduction using magnon–exciton coupling,” was published in Nature Materials on September 14, 2026. The collaboration included researchers at CCNY, the CUNY Advanced Science Research Center, Columbia University, the University of Chemistry and Technology Prague, the University of Chicago, and RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau. CCNY’s announcement describes the experiment and its collaborators.
Why could microwave-to-optical conversion matter for quantum networks?
Many quantum processors use microwave-frequency signals, while optical fiber is useful for carrying information over long distances. A transducer that connects those frequency ranges could eventually help link processors to remote systems. The challenge is not merely producing an optical signal: a useful quantum interface must preserve the information while converting it, operate efficiently, and add very little noise.
CrSBr is interesting because its magnetic and optical properties coexist in one layered material. Its layered structure may also allow thin flakes and compact device integration. The CCNY team, led by study lead Pratap Chandra Adak in Vinod M. Menon’s group, presents these as opportunities for future device engineering, not as demonstrated advantages of a finished network link. Adak noted that CrSBr can be thinned to a few layers while retaining key properties, which could open routes to stronger interactions and more compact devices.
Does this mean quantum states can now be sent over the internet?
No. The experiment showed coherent signal conversion, not the transfer of individual quantum states from a microwave circuit into an optical network. CCNY identifies individual-state transfer as a longer-term goal that requires substantial improvement in conversion efficiency and careful control of added noise.
The institutional announcement does not give a conversion-efficiency figure or a measured added-noise value. Without those metrics, this result cannot establish how well CrSBr would perform as a practical quantum-network transducer. The PubMed record lists the paper’s abstract and bibliographic details; the underlying publication is in Nature Materials.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What would researchers try next?
CCNY describes several possible ways to strengthen the interaction or improve efficiency: using thinner CrSBr flakes, adding microwave resonators, and using high-quality optical cavities. Engineered exciton–polaritons are another research direction for managing optical loss. These are proposed development routes, not improvements already demonstrated by this experiment.
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The central contribution is therefore a materials-based mechanism for producing a coherent optical response from microwave-driven magnetic motion. Whether it can become a low-noise, high-efficiency interface for quantum networks remains an open engineering and physics question.
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