Quantum in the Palm of Your Hand: The Evolution of Superconducting Qubits

One of the most ambitious physics experiments ever conceived is currently being built by an international collaboration hosted by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Once the massive detector modules for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment at the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility are filled with liquid argon and sealed, scientists will not have access to the submerged components for decades. To prepare, researchers are running a stress test on a prototype at CERN pushing the technology to its limits.

An international collaboration hosted by Fermilab in the United States, DUNE is designed to study neutrinos: ghostly particles that are incredibly abundant and incredibly mysterious, due to their shape-shifting behavior and reluctance to interact. Many scientists hope that neutrinos could help explain how matter won out over its equal but opposite counterpart antimatter in the early universe.

“Neutrinos are key in our understanding of how the universe evolved to what it is today, and where it is headed.”

At CERN’s neutrino platform in Europe, there are two 770-ton-scale prototype neutrino detectors called ProtoDUNEs. Each is playing a pivotal role in demonstrating the technologies planned for DUNE.

“The work at ProtoDUNE going into demonstrating the technology is heroic,” said Sowjanya Gollapinni, DUNE co-spokesperson and a senior scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. “Now we want to stress test it and see how it holds up over a long period of time.”

Beyond the neutrinos generated by Fermilab’s new particle accelerator, DUNE will also detect cosmic neutrinos — particles from space that pass effortlessly through the Earth. These cosmic signals will allow scientists to identify the earliest signs of a supernova. Because neutrinos escape a collapsing star before visible light does, they provide an early warning that gives astronomers time to ready their telescopes before the explosion’s glow reaches Earth.

“Neutrinos are key in our understanding of how the universe evolved to what it is today, and where it is headed,” Gollapinni said.

To capture these neutrinos, scientists are installing massive detectors, called liquid-argon time projection chambers, a mile underground at the Sanford Underground Research Facility in South Dakota.

“When a neutrino interacts with an argon atom, it generates a number of charged particles, and these charged particles leave tracks of ionization,” said Flavio Cavanna, a scientist at Fermilab.

The liberated electrons are then pulled by a strong electric field toward specialized components called readout planes inside the chamber. These readout planes record data from the ionized electrons, which scientists can use to reconstruct the direction and energy of the tracks. From this information, scientists can determine the position, energy and identity of the original neutrino.

“When a neutrino interacts with an argon atom, it generates a number of charged particles, and these charged particles leave tracks of ionization.”

Before building DUNE, scientists decided to test two different technologies at the CERN Neutrino Platform. One technique is based on a tried-and-true detector called an Anode Plane Assembly, or APA. This was developed in the 1980s and uses planes of loom-like wire detectors to collect current from the drifting electrons.

“We’ve already used this technique in other neutrino experiments,” Cavanna said. “We know it works.”

The other is a much newer technology that replaces the planes of wires with channels of copper printed onto circuit boards.

“If you ever open a computer or a keyboard, you will see a printed circuit board,” said Steve Kettell, a scientist at Brookhaven National Laboratory and one of DUNE’s technical coordinators. “It’s challenging to wrap wires 3,000 times around a frame. Printed circuit boards are available commercially, so it’s more efficient for the collaboration.”

Scientists successfully tested the APA technique at ProtoDUNE between 2018 and 2024. During this time, physicists and engineers were also testing, redesigning and perfecting the new printed circuit board design, which they nicknamed the “vertical drift,” based on the direction the charged particles move in the liquid argon.

In addition to replacing the APAs with printed circuit boards, the new vertical drift geometry doubles the distance the liberated electrons move, thus allowing scientists to capture and record more neutrinos with fewer components. But this also means that they need a much higher voltage to maintain the electric field that pushes the liberated electrons to the detectors before they disappear.

“A battery that you can hold in your hand has one and a half volts between the two ends,” Kettell said. “We are taking that same concept and scaling it up to 300,000 volts.”

“It’s like building a lightning storm inside of a detector, but we don’t actually want the physical lightning strikes.

Last year, the collaboration started commissioning the new design of the ProtoDUNE Vertical Drift, and by June 2025 the detector was ready to be launched.

“It ran smoothly out of the box,” Gollapinni said. “The ProtoDUNE Vertical Drift has been a resounding success, and we are very thankful for the incredible support provided by the CERN neutrino platform.”

Now that they know it works, the team is ramping the voltage up to 300 kilovolts and seeing how long the detector can hold it.

“It’s like building a lightning storm inside of a detector, but we don’t actually want the physical lightning strikes,” Kettell said. “If we see sparks, it will allow us to study how all of the various components react.”

The stress test started on May 22, 2026, and the scientists plan to have it completed by the fall. According to Kettell, this extended stress test simulates the conditions scientists will ultimately use inside DUNE, but inside a much smaller prototype. “If all the components survive, that’s very encouraging,” Kettell said.

The Department of Energy announced today the list of projects that will receive funding through the Genesis Mission: Transforming Science and Energy with AI. Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory was selected for a portfolio of initiatives, including the AI/ML project led by Fermilab and eight others in which the lab is a key collaborator. These awards position Fermilab as a strong contributor to the Genesis Mission and demonstrate the lab’s leadership in applying artificial intelligence and advanced technologies to accelerate scientific discovery.

“Fermilab is honored to receive this support for advancing artificial intelligence as part of DOE’s Genesis Mission. This investment strengthens our ability to accelerate scientific discovery, develop next‑generation technologies, and drive innovation at the frontiers of particle physics and advanced technology,” Fermilab Director Norbert Holtkamp said. “We are proud to contribute our expertise to a mission that will help shape the next era of U.S. leadership in science and technology.”

The Fermilab-led project will develop AI/ML-based resonance control algorithms to enable high-reliability, low-cost accelerator operations that will substantially improve the performance of particle accelerators that drive discovery science. Several partner institutions, including national labs, universities and industry partner xLight Inc., are contributing to this project.

The Genesis Mission is a historic national initiative led by the U.S. Department of Energy, which is building the world’s most powerful integrated science discovery platform. By uniting government, industry, academia and philanthropy, it is accelerating breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery and national security through a new platform that combines AI, supercomputing, quantum systems and advanced scientific instruments.

The projects named today will receive funding through a Request For Applications (RFA) that was announced by DOE in March. The goal of the Phase I RFA awards is to identify promising pathways toward transformative scientific capabilities and establish a foundation for future investment and scale. Fermilab project teams will design and demonstrate research workflows that integrate AI with scientific investigation, while rigorously evaluating whether those approaches can accelerate discovery, improve predictive capabilities, enhance experimentation, or generate new scientific insights.

Fermilab participated in today’s Genesis Mission Summit as a recipient of a first‑round Genesis Mission award, underscoring its leadership in advanced accelerator technologies as the Department of Energy announced the selected projects.

The AI/ML algorithms that will emerge from the Fermilab-led project will increase science reach, improve stability for users, increase radio-frequency amplifier lifetime and reduce operating costs. Superconducting radio-frequency (SRF) cavities are electromagnetic resonators that transfer energy to beams in particle accelerators. Because they are extremely efficient resonators, they can be disturbed by small vibrations and pressure fluctuations. For current and future SRF-based accelerators like Fermilab’s Proton Improvement Plan-II (PIP-II) linear accelerator, SLAC National Laboratory’s Linac Coherent Light Source-SC, Brookhaven National Laboratory’s Electron-Ion Collider (EIC), Michigan State University’s Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, Argonne National Laboratory’s Argonne Tandem Linac Accelerator System, and industrial accelerators, it is vitally important to have precise control of the cavity resonant frequency.

“These awards recognize the tremendous opportunity to combine artificial intelligence with Fermilab’s world-leading expertise in superconducting accelerator technology,” said Anna Grassellino, chief technology officer and associate laboratory director for the Technology Directorate at Fermilab. “By developing AI-driven control of superconducting RF cavities, we can make future accelerators — such as our own PIP-II — more efficient, reliable, and autonomous, enabling higher scientific performance while reducing operational complexity. This is an important step toward a new generation of intelligent accelerator facilities that will power discoveries across particle physics and many other fields of science.” 

Fermilab will contribute as a key collaborator on several other projects aligned with core research areas of the lab such as neutrino and collider physics, the muon-to-electron-conversion experiment (Mu2e), precision frontier, the Electron-Ion Collider and advanced scientific computing. The following projects were selected for funding through the Genesis Mission:

• How AI will expedite discovery in highly complex electron-ion collider data streams
  Lead institution: Purdue University
• Using an AI-driven approach to detect anomalies in the CMS Level-1 Scouting System
  Lead institution: University of Colorado
• Standardizing and advancing high-performance computing workloads using AI
  Lead institution: University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Using agentic workflows for the expedited search and discovery of charged lepton flavor violation in Mu2e
  Lead institution: University of South Carolina
• Deployment of advanced AI accelerated systems to detect, identify, classify and communicate supernova events in real time for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE)
  Lead institution: Duke University
• The use of AI agents for high-energy physics simulations and analysis operations
  Lead institution: University of Alabama
• Accelerating DUNE physics with AI to discover neutrino interaction uncertainties
  Lead institution: Florida State University
• Physics-driven digital twins simulations for fusion magnet systems
  Lead institution: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

Fermilab is an international leader in particle accelerator science research, which generates massive streams of data for scientific discovery using accelerator and detector technologies. The lab’s high-energy physics research creates unique opportunities for AI innovations. That is why researchers are developing and implementing AI tools to improve the precision of measurements, optimizing operations and accelerating discovery.

Neutrino Day 2026

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab) recently achieved an important milestone by safely positioning the first major piece of equipment for the new Proton Improvement Plan (PIP-II) linear accelerator.

The radio-frequency quadrupole, or RFQ, will serve as the heart of the front end of the PIP-II’s state-of-the-art superconducting radio-frequency linear accelerator, or linac. It will power a high-energy particle beam for the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment at the Long-Baseline Neutrino Facility, Fermilab’s flagship international experiment. Neutrinos in the beam will travel 800 miles through Earth from Batavia, Illinois, to Lead, South Dakota, where DUNE’s massive underground detectors will study the behavior of these elusive particles. DUNE is a world-leading neutrino experiment driving new technologies and capable of pushing the boundaries of scientific discovery.

During the delicate move, the RFQ was placed on a purpose-made transport fixture and driven to the PIP-II site at a careful speed of 5 miles per hour. Once the RFQ reached the newly completed High Bay Building, it was craned down 30 feet to the tunnel level and wheeled into place.

“2026 marks a significant milestone for the PIP-II project. As we accelerate cryomodule production across the United States, U.K. and France, our team is beginning installation of the warm front end in the newly completed facility,” said PIP-II Project Director Cristian Boffo. “The RFQ is the first essential component placed in the pit, marking the beginning of the PIP-II installation phase.”

Because the RFQ is the largest single beamline component in PIP-II’s warm front end, it must be installed first. This allows for maximum space and flexibility.

The PIP-II linac will consist of 23 accelerating devices called cryomodules that gradually power a beam of H-minus ions to 800 million electron volts, or MeV, over its 215-meter length.

“The RFQ handles one of the trickiest regimes, where the beam’s energy is low and the velocity is changing a lot,” said Curt Baffes, linac installation manager for PIP-II. “Seeing this machine come to life is extremely rewarding.”

The 4-meter-long RFQ is made of copper and — unlike the rest of the linac — operates at room temperature.

Next, teams will interface the RFQ with the water-cooling, high-power radio-frequency and vacuum systems, a process expected to take the rest of 2026. In 2027, they will start to apply power to the RFQ to prepare for the first parts of beam commissioning, a slow and steady process that involves turning on one part of the system at a time.

“The last time we built a linac was in the 1960s, and it served the lab for all of this time. What we’re building now will set Fermilab up for the next 50 to 60 years.”

“The last time we built a linac was in the 1960s, and it served the lab for all of this time,” said Steve Dixon, PIP-II conventional facilities manager. “What we’re building now will set Fermilab up for the next 50 to 60 years.”

Other pieces of the PIP-II complex are also progressing. The coldbox and its compressors, key parts of the accelerator’s cryogenic system, arrived at the PIP-II site in January 2025 and were installed and interconnected with piping and electrical wiring. In recent weeks, the team received operational readiness clearance for the cryoplant and compressor room, another major milestone for PIP-II. Soon, they will begin commissioning the coldbox, a process that will take about six months.

Notably, the PIP-II linac is the first particle accelerator in the United States built with significant contributions from international partners, demonstrating the nation’s ability to host and lead major global scientific infrastructure projects. Institutions in France, India, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom are contributing technologies, instrumentation and expertise to build the accelerator.

Over the next 50 years, the PIP-II linear accelerator will drive a broad physics research program beyond DUNE — and may even lead to benefits beyond physics.

For 70 years, physicists around the world have designed elaborate detectors and experiments to study a mysterious particle called the neutrino, with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory playing a leading role in this quest.

Since its founding in 1967, Fermilab scientists have pioneered multiple generations of experiments to learn more about the neutrino, what it could mean for our understanding of physics and its potential benefits for society. Today, Fermilab has embarked on a massive effort to integrate scientists, engineers, technicians, and partners across the globe to safely deliver the most comprehensive neutrino experiment in the world, the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment at the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility.

Fermilab’s top institutional priority is delivering a neutrino beam to DUNE at LBNF by 2031. Once in operation, this experiment will allow scientists to delve even deeper into the mysteries of the neutrino and understand whether neutrinos could be the reason we live in a matter-dominated universe. DUNE at LBNF could also drive innovation in fields that include detector design, cryogenics, medical imaging and high-performance computing, resulting in benefits far beyond particle physics.

“For more than half a century, Fermilab has been at the forefront of unlocking the secrets of neutrinos — particles that hold some of the deepest clues about our universe.”

“For more than half a century, Fermilab has been at the forefront of unlocking the secrets of neutrinos — particles that hold some of the deepest clues about our universe,” said Fermilab Director Norbert Holtkamp. “Today, that legacy continues as we drive forward DUNE at LBNF. DUNE is the largest science project in our laboratory’s history, and its success will define the future of neutrino research for decades to come.”

Fermilab will produce the world’s most intense beam of neutrinos with the Proton Improvement Plan-II project using the PIP-II linear accelerator to send neutrinos from Fermilab in Illinois to Lead, South Dakota, 800 miles away. Underpinning all of the work on DUNE at LBNF, PIP-II and efforts across the lab to prepare to operate the experiment are disciplined execution and operational focus on safety, quality and schedule.

“The combination of size and precision in DUNE is unlike anything we’ve had before,” said Anne Schukraft, scientist in the Intensity Frontier Division at Fermilab. “I’m actually hoping that we find something that we cannot even think of now — something completely unexpected that changes the way we think about neutrinos and the Standard Model of particle physics.”

Decades of neutrino physics at Fermilab

After Fermilab began operations in 1967, it didn’t take long for it to take up the neutrino cause. Beginning with early experiments, including a 15-foot bubble chamber and the E1A experiment, the stage was set for neutrino research. Scientists at Fermilab discovered the tau neutrino, a third type of neutrino, through the Direct Observation of Nu Tau, or DONUT, experiment in 2000.

Leveraging the strength of Fermilab’s Tevatron —the most powerful particle accelerator in the world at the time — the NuTeV experiment made measurements in the late 1990s using beams of high energy neutrinos and antineutrinos.

“NuTeV was the culmination of a long series of precision neutrino experiments at Fermilab that used neutrinos to probe the structure of matter and the weak interaction,” said Bob Bernstein, Fermilab senior scientist and former NuTeV co-spokesperson. “It also helped train many of the scientists who went on to lead the next generation of neutrino experiments.”

With the completion of the Main Injector in 1999 — a 2-mile circular accelerator — and an intense beam of neutrinos called NuMI, Fermilab launched a new era of neutrino research that brought the MINOS, MINERvA and NOvA experiments.

MINERvA took data to study neutrino-nucleus interactions from 2010 to 2019, and physicists are still analyzing those data and publishing new results today.

MINOS, the lab’s first long-baseline neutrino experiment, provided some of the world’s most precise measurements of a phenomenon called neutrino oscillations, which describes how the neutrino’s flavor changes as it travels over space and time. It also laid the groundwork for future long-baseline neutrino experiments like DUNE.

NOvA, another crucial neutrino experiment hosted by Fermilab, is the only currently operating long-baseline neutrino experiment in the United States and is producing some of the most precise measurements of neutrino behavior. With its near detector at Fermilab and its far detector in Ash River, Minnesota, NOvA is taking data and measuring neutrino oscillations over a 500-mile distance.

“By increasing this travel distance to 800 miles, DUNE will take a giant leap forward in pushing such neutrino exploration into a new era of precision and discovery potential.”

“By increasing this travel distance to 800 miles, DUNE will take a giant leap forward in pushing such neutrino exploration into a new era of precision and discovery potential,” said Sam Zeller, Fermilab senior scientist and deputy project director for the DUNE at LBNF near detector.

Fermilab is the only facility in the world that simultaneously also operates a second accelerator-based beamline. This low energy Booster Neutrino Beam was born with MiniBooNE and has since expanded into the Short-Baseline Neutrino program, consisting of SBND, MicroBooNE and ICARUS. The short-baseline trio of experiments produces high-precision measurements, and it is designed to investigate the possible existence of a theorized fourth type of neutrino called sterile neutrino.

“We are one of the only facilities in the world that can produce neutrinos in an accelerator beam — in a controlled environment with high intensity,” said Schukraft.

While MicroBooNE stopped taking data in 2021, SBND and ICARUS are still active today. Future combined results promise to shed more light on the fourth-neutrino mystery.

Paving the way for innovation

All of Fermilab’s previous neutrino research and detector development has not only established the laboratory as a global leader in neutrino science, but also significantly contributed to DUNE. For example, MINOS paved the way as the world’s first long-baseline neutrino experiment. The SBN program’s liquid-argon time projection chambers provided a proving ground for the same technology that will be used in DUNE’s detectors.

“We are one of the only facilities in the world that can produce neutrinos in an accelerator beam — in a controlled environment with high intensity.”

Going forward, Fermilab researchers will continue to use neutrino research to drive innovation. For example, at DUNE, artificial intelligence tools will rapidly analyze millions of particle interactions, help identify rare signals such as early supernova signatures and support detector operations. Seventy years after neutrinos were first detected, Fermilab continues to lead the world in neutrino science. Through DUNE at LBNF, PIP-II and the expertise built through generations of discovery, Fermilab is delivering the scientific capabilities that will define the next era of particle physics and strengthen America’s leadership in discovery and innovation.