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A chip-integrated array of hollow-core waveguides has stored faint light pulses in cesium vapor for hundreds of nanoseconds, demonstrating multiple memory channels on one chip. The experiment is a step toward synchronizing photons in future quantum networks and photonic processors—not a demonstration of simultaneous storage of multiple non-classical single photons or a ready-to-use quantum memory.
What the quantum-memory chip did
In a 2026 paper, Esteban Gómez-López and colleagues reported a chip carrying multiple hollow-core waveguides known as “light cages.” The team stored attenuated coherent light pulses in cesium vapor inside the waveguides, then retrieved them using control pulses. Two neighboring devices showed similar behavior, suggesting the structures can be integrated as parallel memory channels.
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The paper reports a memory bandwidth of 35.2(6) MHz and a fractional delay close to 4 for pulses with a temporal width of 14 ns. In measurements of two neighboring light cages, storage times were 86(3) ns and 87(3) ns under the reported laboratory conditions. These figures describe the experiment, not a product specification. Gómez-López et al., “Light storage in light cages: a scalable platform for multiplexed quantum memories,” Light: Science & Applications (2026).
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The researchers fabricated hollow-core, anti-resonant waveguides on silicon using 3D two-photon polymerization and coated them with alumina. Side openings allow cesium vapor to diffuse into the hollow cores. The chip sits inside a cesium vapor cell, where light interacts with the atoms through electromagnetically induced transparency, or EIT. Control pulses write a signal pulse into the atomic medium and later retrieve it.
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The hollow cores and shared chip platform are central to the design: several waveguides can provide separate storage channels in one device. The reported work demonstrates this integration and storage with faint coherent pulses; it does not establish that a large array has been built or that the device is ready for practical deployment.
What “multiple photons at once” means—and does not mean
The headline shorthand can suggest that researchers stored several individual quantum photons simultaneously. That is not what this experiment demonstrated. Its inputs were attenuated coherent light pulses, which are not non-classical single-photon states. The result is evidence for multiple integrated memory waveguides storing faint light, not proof of simultaneous storage of multiple single photons.
The authors identify operation with non-classical light as a future direction, contingent on improving efficiency, reducing noise and preserving coherence. Those improvements are necessary before this platform can support the single-photon-level use cases associated with quantum networking or computing.
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Photons can carry quantum information, but systems often need to hold and synchronize them before operations can take place. If several storage channels can be replicated on a chip, they could help manage photons that arrive at different times.
Quantum networks
In a quantum repeater, memories can hold states while entanglement-swapping operations are coordinated across links. A chip with parallel memory channels could eventually help synchronize those operations. The light-cage experiment did not demonstrate a practical repeater or network connection.
Photonic processors
Photonic computing can also require controlled delays so photons arrive together for operations or feed-forward steps. The light cages point toward a possible on-chip storage element, but the study did not use them in a photonic computer.
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A separate 2025 Nature study illustrates the broader effort to scale modular photonic computing: its scale model used 35 photonic chips, 84 squeezers, 36 photon-number-resolving detectors and 12 physical qubit modes at each clock cycle. That is a distinct system, not a scale-up of the light-cage memory. “Scaling and networking a modular photonic quantum computer,” Nature (2025).
What still limits practical use
The paper identifies loss in the waveguide, reduced cesium density inside the cores, and decoherence associated with magnetic-field control and atomic motion as challenges. The polymer structure’s thermal stability also limits operating temperature. These issues affect how efficiently light can be stored and retrieved, how much unwanted noise enters, and how well quantum information can remain intact.
The authors discuss possible routes for improvement, including longer waveguides, better magnetic shielding and field compensation, and changes to the waveguide and vapor-cell design. The paper presents these as engineering directions, not fixes already demonstrated to deliver a practical memory.
How far the scalability claim goes
Here, “scalable” is a platform goal supported by fabricating multiple reproducible light cages on one chip. That is meaningful progress beyond a single storage channel, but it does not mean the device has been scaled into a production-ready memory, a quantum repeater, or a computer. Efficiency, noise, coherence and device engineering remain unresolved before single-photon operation can be established.
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