BOZEMAN – Two years ago, a research team led by Montana State University assistant professor Martin Mosquera discovered that photons – the smallest possible units of light – can be controlled with color superposition to interact with and reveal specific information about molecules.
For that discovery and its significance, as well as his work in advancing the chemical sciences, Mosquera has been named one of 19 U.S. Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award winners for 2025 by the Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation. Awardees are chosen for the independent body of scholarship they attain in the early years of their academic appointments and for their demonstrated commitment to education, signaling the promise of continuing outstanding contributions to both research and teaching. The prestigious award comes with a $100,000 grant for further research development.
Mosquera was nominated for the honor by Joan Broderick, head of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry in MSU’s College of Letters and Science.
Mosquera is a computational chemist. He uses theoretical and numerical methods to determine, with high accuracy, experimental results that can be observed in a lab. He specializes in the study of quantum systems, not only in his academic department but at the MonArk Quantum Foundry, a National Science Foundation program led jointly by MSU and the University of Arkansas to accelerate two-dimensional materials research for quantum technologies.
The discovery that was recognized by the Dreyfus Foundation – the manipulation of photons, or quanta of light, for sensing – represents a potential breakthrough in quantum chemistry.
Mosquera explained that chemists commonly use spectroscopy to carefully measure light absorbed and emitted by substances. Because all materials interact with light differently, scientists can analyze the spectra of those materials to identify unique “fingerprints” and determine each substance’s composition, structure and properties.
Spectrometers use light in which the color of each photon is determined. But quantum light, which emerges when light passes through specialized materials called non-linear crystals, is different, in part because photons behave as waves in quantum mechanics. The wavelike photons can interfere with each other, amplifying or canceling each other out like ripples on a pond’s surface, and their colors can be undetermined until they are observed, a state called color superposition.
“We asked the question: If we don’t know the color of the photons, what will happen?” Mosquera said. “We are the first lab to suggest the possibility of employing a special kind of light to enhance the signal from a molecule in a sample.”
The researchers discovered that quantum light reveals the same chemical fingerprints as conventional spectroscopy; however, under some conditions, those signals can be enhanced with quantum light.
“You can either tune it to be highly interactive with the sample or to not interact with it,” Mosquera said. “There is controllability that is very interesting, and we were the first lab to report this type of effect.”
That ability to manipulate and control photons could have multiple scientific and industrial applications, including in the field of medical imaging, according to Mosquera. For example, to detect cancerous tissue without harming the host, quantum light could be manipulated to operate at extremely low intensity, undetectable to the naked eye but capable of being picked up by a special sensor.
Mosquera said the conditions created via computer are difficult to duplicate in the real world but that viable experiments may be designed and ready to run within the next five to 10 years. He hopes to involve both MSU undergraduate and graduate students in the effort.
“This research has been ongoing, and now with this support, we’re going to get more intense on it,” Mosquera said.
The Dreyfus recognition isn’t the first significant award for Mosquera since he came to MSU four years ago. In 2024, he received an Early Career Research Program Award from the U.S. Department of Energy to expand a modeling platform he designed to predict the erratic behavior of atomic particles, also known as quantum systems. That work has potential physical applications in quantum computing.
Broderick said Mosquera is very deserving of the teacher-scholar recognition. Not only has his research at MSU led to important contributions in quantum chemistry, materials chemistry and metalloenzymes, she said, but he also serves as a teacher and mentor for students across the department who seek him out for help, advice and direction on computational efforts related to their own research.
“Martin Mosquera is an exceptionally talented scholar and an inspiring research mentor and teacher with a very promising future,” Broderick said.