A Tale of Quantum Silence
A story in superposition
In a windowless basement laboratory of the Lewis Integrative Science Building at the University of Oregon, Nik Zhelev’s lab is on a quest for the ultimate quiet. Not the absence of sound, but the absence of... everything. The basement lab of the research assistant professor and director of the Quantum Technology Master’s Internship Program is a prime location as the vibrations in the floors are lowest here, there are no windows supplying light, and temperatures are most stable in these rooms due to the thermal damping of the surrounding concrete.
These features make this the perfect place to study the fragile, fleeting nature of quantum materials and qubits. Zhelev’s Quantum Technologies lab has become a sort of sanctuary from light and noise, an inner sanctum devoted to the study of the smallest particles of our world. Recently, Zhelev, students, and the Oregon Fabrication and Design (OFAD) completed a crucial component for experiments done in this space: A final inner shield mounted at the very center of a cryostat in a nested structure like a set of Russian Matryoshka dolls. The shield was designed to create a progressively quieter and more stable environment—all the better for studying qubits, quantum particles that can exist in two states at once.
But how this story unfolds is, for now, in a state of superposition. The narrative is a fuzzy haze of possibilities, waiting for the observer, to collapse it into a single reality. Choices will now determine the path taken.
Click a path below to begin the experiment.
An Essential Primer on Superposition
Hold on. Before the story begins to collapses into a single reality, let's take a brief moment to discuss what all this quantum-whatsit is about.
Any conversation about quantum states usually begins with the most famous analogy in science: Schrödinger's Cat. The thought experiment goes like this: a cat is in a sealed box with a vial of poison that will shatter if a single radioactive atom decays. Because the atomic decay is a random quantum event, there is no way to know what happened until you open the box.
Until it's observed, the atom is in a "superposition"—a fuzzy, undefined state of being both decayed and not decayed at the same time. Therefore, the cat, whose fate is tied to the atom, is considered both dead *and* alive. The most striking thing about this isn't the morbid setup; it's how utterly bizarre it is. That's the main takeaway: quantum mechanics is weird and defies our everyday intuition. As physicist Richard Feynman might have famously said, "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics."
This weirdness makes explaining things like "qubits" (quantum bits) incredibly difficult. Good analogies rely on shared, common experiences, but the quantum realm operates on rules completely alien to our own. The most common analogies explain that a qubit, unlike a classical bit (a 1 or a 0), can be both at once—like our poor, undead cat.
But since no one wants to think about zombie cats, we'll use a simpler, kinder analogy for our story: a spinning coin. Before it lands, it's neither heads nor tails, but a blur of both possibilities.
The path may now be chosen.
An Epic-Tier Shield for Cryo Defense
In the high-stakes quest of quantum computing, Zhelev's lab just acquired some epic-tier armor. This isn’t your standard vendor gear. Forged by the craftspeople of the OFAD instrumentation shop, this multi-layered, oxygen-free, high thermal conductivity copper shield provides a massive rebuff against environmental damage.
In the world of quantum mechanics, the main boss isn’t a dragon; it’s decoherence. Stray photons and magnetic fields are like a constant damage-over-time (DoT) effect, corrupting the fragile quantum states, or qubits, that are the heart of the experiment. This new shield is a high-resistance cloak, designed to bring that DoT down to zero.
The mission? To explore the strange physics inside a cryogenic dilution refrigerator, a machine that chills materials to less than 20 millikelvin (<20 mK)—a temperature colder than deep space. With their new gear equipped, the Zhelev team is ready to face the next level of quantum discovery.
The final piece installed, a new PhD candidate, fresh to the lab, saw the gleaming copper and couldn’t contain their excitement. How did they express it?
The Emptiness Required for Discovery
To plumb the universe for depths that reveal its most fundamental properties, you must first build a place of profound emptiness. In the basement of the Lewis Integrative Sciences Building, Zhelev’s lab recently finished constructing a artifical void, a sensory deprivation tank built to study quantum materials and qubits that may someday be part of a quantum computer
The experiment itself lives inside a dilution refrigerator, an environment cooled to near absolute zero (<20 mK), where the frantic, cosmic dance of atoms is slowed to a near standstill. But even this cold is not enough. The universe is filled with an invisible, incessant chatter: the noise associated with stray photons, cosmic rays, the faint magnetic whispers of the building’s wiring. To a delicate qubit, held in a fragile superposition of states, this noise is a deafening roar that can shatter its quantum coherence in an instant
The solution is a shield of profound isolation. Forged in the OFAD instrument shop from the purest oxygen-free copper, it is more than a piece of metal. It is the wall of a silent monastery, a place where a quantum state can exist, undisturbed, long enough for Nik and his students to learn its secrets.
As the final, gleaming piece was installed, a new PhD student, excited to see the project come to completion, turned to one of the OFAD machinists who built it. What did they say?
Where Old Meets New, or, 0s and 1s But Never 2s
A new PhD student, still getting to know the University of Oregon campus, stood at workbench, looking down on the custom copper shield before it was mounted onto the cryostat. “Wow, this is perfect! When we figured out that the cryostat’s off-the-shelf shielding wasn’t going to cut it for studying qubits at the temperature we needed, I was so relieved to learn that a place exists on campus to make a shield to spec like this.”
Though some might regard the skills of an instrument machinist antiquated when surrounded by machinery aimed at decoding the secrets of quantum computing, our story of the copper shield is rather an example of human ingenuity and mixing the hands-on work of manufacturing with academic research.
OFAD, one of the university’s core research facilities, began as a machine shop housing such tools as lathes and drill presses. But as technology has evolved, OFAD has also become host to the newest tools of the trade, including laser cutters, polymer and composite 3D printers, and CNC bed mills.
Standing beside the PhD student, an OFAD instrument machinist smiles at the admiration of his work. “Back when our shop was founded, and still today, the mission was clear: To enable the real-world success of scientists, designers, and artists by giving them access to tools and expertise. It’s my job to help people shorten the time it takes to go from a brilliant idea to a physical, working prototype. It's truly a unique and vital resource.”
"Unfortunately, even vital resources like OFAD aren’t immune to the financial pressures facing the university. The UO is currently grappling with a significant budget challenge, and we’re seeing changes to federal research funding that threaten to significantly cut funding for “basic research”—fundamental research that establishes understanding of a previously unexplained phenomena or helps create a theory about how something works. In other words, exactly the kind of research that OFAD enables. That’s why protecting these unique resources is so important—they are the heart of what makes UO a leading research institution helping to solve society’s most pressing problems.
Making the monumental leap from our current computing capabilities—in which units of data are confined to 0s and 1s, yes or no, on or off—to those of quantum computing—where those units of data, qubits, exist in superposition, which is a state anywhere between 0 and 1 and undefined until measured—promises to enable a new era of computing power many times faster than what’s now possible.
With the story of the shield now told, the narrative reaches its conclusion.
The Quantum Testbed
Professor Zhelev’s lab is a testbed for quantum materials and a hub for experiential learning. Here, students and researchers work together, pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the quantum realm. The lab is equipped with a powerful dilution refrigerator and a suite of radio-frequency electronics, allowing for precise communication with the quantum world.
With the new shield installed, the lab is now an even more effective sanctuary from the noise of the classical world. Inside this quiet space, researchers can ‘tiddle’ qubits—gently manipulating them with electromagnetic fields—and listen for their responses. This process of probing and measuring is at the heart of basic research in quantum science, providing valuable insights into the behavior of these strange and powerful particles.
The work of this lab is not just about exploring the fundamental nature of reality; it’s also about training the next generation of quantum engineers and scientists. The hands-on experience gained here is invaluable, preparing students for careers in the rapidly growing quantum technology industry. To learn more about the program, visit the UO Quantum Technology Master’s Internship Program.
With the story of the shield now told, the narrative reaches its conclusion.
The Flex
An instrument machinist from the OFAD shop, a person who has spent endless days working in the confines of tolerances along the lines of a thousandths of an inch, removed the bifocals he was wearing to tap tiny metric holes around the edge of a copper flange. He had spent the day carefully assembling the nested layers of an annealed copper shield.
A new PhD student, barely old enough to remember a world without smartphones, stared at the finished product. The polished surface gleamed in the natural light streaming through the windows of the machine shop.
“This might be the last time this thing sees any photons born from Sol,” the machinist mumbled, mostly to himself. “From now on it’s just regurgitated light from sterile LEDs down in Nik’s lab.”
“Nice flex!” the student said, nodding with approval.
The machinist paused, a bemused look on his face. He ran a hand over the smooth, cold metal. “Flex? It shouldn’t have that much anymore. The cylindrical shape we formed it into provides structural rigidity.”
His brow furrowed. “This is oxygen-free high-conductivity copper. It’s annealed to be soft, sure, which made forming it easier and doesn’t hurt for better thermal contact, but once it’s bolted down at 20 millikelvin, it’s not going to be flexing anywhere.”
The student blinked, a slow smile spreading across their face. “Right. No, I mean... it’s a flex. What you said about photons. Like, showing off. It’s just... really, really cool.”
The machinist stared at the shield, then back at the student, a flicker of understanding in his eyes. He gave a wry exhale, with the slightest back and forth shake of his head. “Well, I suppose we are showing off a little. What say we bag everything up to keep it clean and bring it to its new home now? Say goodbye to the sun, buddy.”
With the story of the shield now told, the narrative reaches its conclusion.
The Machinist's Gambit: Taming "Gummy" Copper
It might sound strange, but in the OFAD shop, machinists have a peculiar word for copper: gummy. This isn't about taste or texture, but about its unique and often challenging workability. During subtractive processes like milling or drilling, copper has a tendency to be “sticky,” a trait machinists call galling.
To counter this, machinists must always use exceptionally sharp tools, often with a high rake angle and polished flutes, and never cut the material dry. Without proper lubrication, the cutting action can degrade into rubbing. When that happens, the copper can cold-weld itself to the tool’s edge, causing material to build up, making the cutting progressively harder. This compounds with copper’s high ductility. Instead of being cleanly cut, the soft metal gets smeared like peanut butter, causing the part to flex and “walk” in its fixture. This can destroy accuracy or, in a worst-case scenario, send the entire piece flying from the vise.
In short, copper is gummy with a tendency to walk. Machining it can be a nail-biting affair. But the stress is worth it. Copper has a grand, golden metallic sheen—the same quality that must have drawn in the first humans who saw it glowing in its native form. It was one of the first materials ever worked by our ancestors, and here we are, more than 10,000 years later, still shaping it for our most advanced technologies.
With the story of the shield now told, the narrative reaches its conclusion.
The Observation is Complete
The act of observation has concluded. A single narrative path was chosen, collapsing a haze of possibilities into a singular reality. The process mirrors the very quantum mechanics at the heart of the story, where the act of measurement forces a qubit out of superposition and into a definite state.
After all the science, the craftsmanship, and the storytelling, just one final, essential question remains.
This copper shielding, though... is it big enough for a cat?