Quantum Computing Hardware

Quantum computers are vastly faster than classical computers and enable highly complex calculations or secure encryption methods. They offer users the opportunity to expand information technology by making completely new processes possible.

At Fraunhofer ILT, laser-based processes – including micro and nano structuring with ultrafast lasers or selective laser-induced etching (SLE) – are used to create structures and component groups that can be used in the field of quantum computing. Microscopically dimensioned, waveguiding structures allow, for example, communication between qubits – the computational units of quantum computers – with single photons. Important research aspects here include improving the waveguiding properties of devices and directed photon emission from qubits. 

To couple different qubit systems over long distances, quantum frequency converters (QFC) are needed to convert single photons from an output wavelength to a target wavelength while preserving their quantum states.

Fraunhofer ILT is developing efficient and low-noise quantum frequency converters (QFC) for the connection of qubits to optical fibers. In this area, the institute is cooperating closely with the QuTech research center and collaborating with the Delft University of Technology and the Dutch Organization for Applied Scientific Research TNO. The qubits used include NV centers in diamond, which emit photons at a wavelength of 637 nm. The targeted wavelengths for low-loss transmission via optical fibers are between 1500 and 1600 nm. Special QFC components are crucial for demonstrating the first quantum internet, for which QuTech scientists will connect qubits in Delft, Leiden, The Hague and Amsterdam into a common system using optical fibers.

The long-term goal is to create architectures in which fault-tolerant quantum computers can be built in a modular fashion and photonically coupled. 

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