UTC Quantum Center team members Evan Humberd, Dr. Mohmad Junaid Ul Haq and Dr. Tian Li at the CLEO Science Slam. Photo courtesy of Dr. Mohmad Junaid Ul Haq.
When Dr. Mohmad Junaid Ul Haq took the stage at the Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO) in Charlotte, North Carolina, he had 10 minutes to explain a highly technical piece of quantum research to a broad audience.
He did it well enough to finish in second place.
Junaid Ul Haq, a postdoctoral research associate in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Quantum Center, earned the honor in the annual CLEO Science Slam, which challenges scientists, students and postdoctoral researchers to present complex work in laser science, optics and quantum technology in a clear, engaging way.
His presentation—titled “Two Photons. One Clock.”—focused on quantum networking and timing synchronization research being done in Chattanooga using EPB’s fiber infrastructure, White Rabbit timing technology, miniature atomic clocks and time taggers.
“It was very exciting for me because I am really enthusiastic about communicating with people,” said Junaid Ul Haq, who came to UTC in August 2025. “I believe I understand the problem only as much as I’m able to explain it to people.”
The second-place finish came with a $500 cash award.
The CLEO Science Slam began with researchers submitting a three-minute video about their work. From there, five finalists were selected to present to hundreds of conference attendees, who judged them on both technical accuracy and their ability to connect with the audience.
Junaid Ul Haq said that part of the experience appealed to him.
“It’s really important for me to stand up there and explain the problem,” he said, “because we had solved a very fundamental problem.”
He also said the event reinforced something he strongly believes about science and communication: that good research should not be locked away in technical language if there is a way to help people understand it.
At the center of Junaid Ul Haq’s CLEO talk was quantum entanglement, one of the most important concepts in quantum science and not always easy to explain to a broad audience.
He found a way.
“I told the audience to think of it like two magic dice,” Junaid Ul Haq explained. “You roll one in Charlotte and I roll the other in Tokyo. Every single time these dice will match, not because there is a signal passing between them, but because they were never truly separate to begin with.”
That connection between particles, he explained, can hold even when photons are separated by long distances. But proving that entanglement exists across a network requires extraordinary timing precision.
“When we are sending these photons, let’s suppose one to Broad Street and another to 10th Street, we need to make sure that the detectors at these two places are synchronized to sub-nanosecond precision,” he said. “We needed sub-nanosecond precision to verify this entanglement.”
A nanosecond is one-billionth of a second.
That timing problem is a major challenge researchers at the UTC Quantum Center are working to solve. The team has been studying how to keep systems at separate locations aligned closely enough to support quantum networking experiments and, eventually, more advanced projects.
Junaid Ul Haq said the work involves combining White Rabbit, a high-precision timing system, with miniature atomic clocks and time taggers that record exactly when photons are detected.
The research team first used White Rabbit to synchronize the system, then explored whether atomic clocks could serve as an alternative when dedicated timing links are less practical.
Junaid Ul Haq said the atomic clock approach produced comparable results over eight continuous hours of measurement.
“The idea was to replicate an operationally relevant scenario,” Junaid Ul Haq said. “We did the tuning 12 hours before, then sent them out and started working on our experiments.”
He said that kind of progress matters because precise timing is central to quantum networking. Once synchronization is achieved, the network will be ready for quantum operations such as entanglement swapping—a protocol to transfer quantum entanglement from one pair of particles to another, even if the second pair of particles have never interacted.
Junaid Ul Haq’s faculty adviser, Dr. Tian Li, said the work reflects both strong science and an ability to explain why it matters.
“Junaid is an outstanding researcher in quantum photonics with a strong ability to connect fundamental science to practical applications,” said Li, a UC Foundation assistant professor of physics and chief technology officer for the UTC Quantum Center. “His work focuses on quantum networking, quantum control and precision timing technologies.”
Li said one of the most impressive things about Junaid Ul Haq is his “combination of technical rigor and creativity.”
“He consistently approaches challenging problems with both scientific depth and a clear vision,” Li said.
That same balance helped shape the CLEO Science Slam presentation.
“We focused on telling the story behind the science, how quantum technologies can enable advanced networking protocols and next-generation timing systems, rather than emphasizing technical details,” Li said. “Junaid did an excellent job making a highly complex topic engaging and understandable for a broad audience.”
Junaid Ul Haq said explaining the work to wider audiences is important because it helps bridge the gap between theoretical research and experimental work while giving people a clearer sense of where the technology is headed.
For Li, seeing Junaid Ul Haq succeed on that stage was meaningful.
“Watching Junaid grow into an independent researcher and effective science communicator has been incredibly rewarding,” Li said. “CLEO is one of the world’s premier conferences in lasers, optics and photonics, attracting leading researchers from academia, industry and national laboratories. Earning second place in the CLEO Science Slam is a remarkable achievement.”
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