To develop a technology that can connect two quantum computers through optical fiber and thus lay the foundation for the 'Quantum Internet'. This is the goal of the pioneering research project that has earned Silvia Zorzetti of Chicago's FermiLab, and University of Pisa alumna, the U.S. government's Early Career Award, which will enable her to receive a $2.5 million grant over five years from the U.S. Department of Energy.

The goal of the project, Zorzetti explains, "is to improve quantum sensors and sensor networks so as to enable more efficient conversion of quantum information and signals between different physical platforms," Silvia Zorzetti explains. This work will allow us to significantly expand our capabilities to detect dark matter, and its results will have broad applications in different scientific fields and will influence critical areas such as national security and quantum communication."

Head of the Quantum Computing Co-design Department of the Superconducting quantum materials and systems center at Fermilab in Chicago, Silvia Zorzetti graduated in electrical engineering from the University of Pisa. Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow at Cern in Geneva for four years, where she was involved in the research and development of future particle accelerators as part of the PhD research also obtained at the Ateneo Pisano, she came to FermiLab in 2017 as a Bardeen fellow. "The one at FermiLab," Zorzetti recalls, "was a return for me. Here, I did my master's thesis project, thanks to an exchange program of the University of Pisa, and then returned there permanently in 2017."