Quantum Photonics Lab by SOLAE

What if you could turn Minecraft into a small quantum optics lab?

Quantum Photonics Lab lets you build real photonic experiments inside the game. Place lasers, beam splitters, phase shifters, mirrors, and detectors, connect them into interferometers, and watch how light behaves when phase and interference start to matter.

Build a Mach–Zehnder interferometer. Change the phase. See the detection probabilities shift. Try different light sources — coherent light, weak coherent pulses, single photons — and observe how the statistics change. Detection outcomes follow the Born rule, and interference comes from complex amplitudes and phase evolution (not scripted effects).

And this isn’t limited to interferometers: the mod is also evolving toward photon statistics experiments like HBT (Hanbury Brown–Twiss) and two-photon interference like HOM (Hong–Ou–Mandel) (incoming).

You can:

Create configurable interferometers
Sweep phase and observe interference fringes
Compare classical-like light and single-photon behavior
Visualize detection probabilities in balanced readout mode IN-GAME
Export data for external plotting
Explore (and soon build) HBT and HOM style experiments

The goal is simple: make quantum optics interactive.

Instead of only reading about interference, coherence, and measurement in textbooks, you can build the experiment yourself — block by block — and see how the physics responds.

If you’re curious about how photonic quantum computing works at a conceptual level, this mod gives you a hands-on starting point.

PS: This mod is based on real quantum optics principles. If you’d like a deeper explanation of the physics, additional background material is available at www.solae.tech

Requirements

Python 3.10+ is required for the optional data export and plotting feature.

The core quantum optics simulation runs entirely in-game.
If Python is not installed, the mod will still work, but export/plot generation will be disabled.

Installation steps:

Install Python 3.10 or newer from: https://www.python.org/downloads/
Make sure Python is added to your system PATH
Verify installation by running python --version in your terminal or command prompt

Once installed, the in-game export feature will automatically generate plots.

SOLAE Quantum Photonics Lab