The joint research of IHP – Leibniz Institute for High Performance Microelectronics and RWTH Aachen together with the Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZ Jülich) has reached a new level. Yesterday, the Joint Lab on "semiconductor-based quantum computing" was officially opened in Frankfurt (Oder). For this ceremony, Prof. Dr. Hendrik Bluhm accompanied by his team leaders Dr. Lars Schreiber from RWTH Aachen and Dr. Vincent Mourik from FZ Jülich presented the state-of-the-art research in this field.
The Joint Lab is based on a long-term partnership between IHP, RWTH Aachen and FZ Jülich, focused on scientific activities in the field of scalable quantum computer architectures and improvement of spin-based qubit and multi-qubit operation. Dr. Marvin H. Zöllner, coordinator of the Joint Lab, considers: “In perspective of the Quantum year 2025, the Joint Lab is the natural next step to foster our academic and technological collaboration.”
“Why focusing on scaling up?” Prof. Bluhm answers: “If you want to harvest the full potential of quantum computing applying it to real world problems, you need millions of qubits. That topic needs to be addressed from a broad range of perspectives and requires to merge interdisciplinary competencies. The joint lab with IHP provides an excellent framework for doing so.” The required Infrastructure for the fabrication of quantum devices is established at IHP in close alignment with the partner institutions. Within ongoing third party funded projects, material research especially in group IV semiconductors aims for an established process line for quantum technology components. Furthermore, first processed templates of silicon quantum wells have already been successfully tested. At IHP’s magneto transport laboratory which allows the characterization of devices at temperatures close to zero Kelvin and large magnetic fields, test devices have been characterized revealing top-notch charge carrier mobilities reflecting the high quality of the quantum wells, fabricated at IHP.
During the Joint Lab opening ceremony Prof. Dr. Gerhard Kahmen, scientific director of IHP, explains: “Quantum technologies, in particular quantum computing, shows potential to solve complex calculations which are time consuming or not yet solvable at all. Especially Si/SiGe-based approaches are promising due to the highly developed and scalable Silicon technology environment. Within the Joint Lab we explore together with our Partners RWTH Aachen/ FZ Jülich such approaches with the goal to provide a substantial contribution for future quantum computing.”
The RWTH Aachen has around 47 000 students which makes it one of the largest universities for technical studies in Germany. It is funded as a university of excellence and is a founding member of the CESAER association of universities of science and technology in Europe. The Forschungszentrum Jülich has around 7250 employees in eleven institutes and is therefore one of the biggest research facilities in Europe.
