In addition to working on NASA-funded research, Hantang Qin is raising a space-exploration enthusiast. His 8-year-old son, George, eagerly watched the launch of the Artemis II mission in April 2026, fresh on the heels of a visit to the University of Wisconsin-Madison Space Place.
During that outing to the astronomy department’s public education center on Madison’s south side, Qin watched George try out a diffraction-grating kaleidoscope, which splits light into its component wavelengths (aka, colors). And it struck Qin, an associate professor of industrial and systems engineering at UW-Madison, that he was seeing his son glimpse the principle behind one of the core components of his latest research endeavor.
Qin has received a five-year, $550,000 National Science Foundation CAREER Award to build a new type of laser-assisted hybrid nanomanufacturing system that will feature a laser-diffraction-enabled quality monitoring system. Qin’s aim is to create a system that, once scaled up, could reliably produce qubit arrays needed for quantum computing—all while operating in space, away from the influence of gravity.
“It’s hard to make arrays at this moment because each small unit is already too hard to make,” says Qin. “Making units into arrays is a huge challenge. So, if we can control the quality of each pillar inside of the array, it will improve the efficiency of prototyping quantum devices.”
Qin’s research has centered around electrohydrodynamic inkjet printing, an alternative form of 3D printing technology that employs electrical force rather than gravity to extrude inks at the micro- and nanoscales. That’s especially important for his work on in-space manufacturing of electronic components, which his lab has tested in zero gravity several times.
In this project, Qin will combine the printing process with a laser-sintering treatment that removes excess polymers and enhances 3D patterning to improve the components’ electrical performance.
“We’re looking into how the physics will change—given the two processes are now merged into one step—and how the quality can be evaluated,” says Qin.
Enter laser diffraction, which will allow Qin’s team to glean insights that would elude visual detection using traditional methods.
“Even using a microscope at the nanoscale, the resolution is too small to be recognized,” he says. “In this case, we shoot a laser at this nanojet. The laser will be diffracted, and it will be large patterns that we can analyze and try to calculate what’s going on with the nanojet. By doing this, we will have a manufacturing system. We will have a quality control system. Together, we can make better quantum devices.”
And space, it turns out, could be an ideal setting for qubit manufacturing. “A lot of the time when we make the nanostructures, they collapse,” Qin says. “But under zero gravity, there will be no gravity to collapse them.”
Thus, not only could future qubit arrays and microelectronic devices be printed and then deployed to support space missions, repair satellites and more, but they also could be printed in the friendlier confines of zero gravity and then shipped down to earth. Qin also sees opportunities to eventually expand the scope of the work to biomedical applications, such as lab-on-a-chip devices.
For the educational component of his CAREER Award, Qin plans to create a virtual-reality-based teaching platform, which will enable hands-on learning away from well-stocked research labs and testing facilities.
“I value workforce development quite a lot,” he says.