Praseodymium Laser Architecture Investigation and Demonstrator (PLAID)

It is difficult to overestimate the impact of electronic computers on modern society – and yet, just a few decades ago, computer technology was a creature of the research laboratory due to their enormous complexity, power requirement, and cost. The uptake of such technology by wider, non-specialist society was only possible once improvements in the size, cost and performance of the subsystems upon which computers depend had been realised. Quantum technology finds itself at a similar junction. These systems are now a reality and hold enormous potential to revolutionise our lives, but they are only found in research laboratories because they depend upon very expensive, very large laser systems. In this project, we will reduce the size and cost of these critical components enormously, without losing performance, in order to place the UK at the vanguard of QT development and commercialisation.