Xanadu, a photonic quantum computer company, and imec, the largest European research center for nano- and microelectronics based in Leuven, Belgium, have entered into a partnership. Together, they want to develop the next generation of photonic qubits based on silicon nitride waveguides that can transmit information almost losslessly.
They are based on 'squeezed light', which is in a special quantum state and is generated by optoelectronic silicon components integrated into chips. 'Squeezed light' enables error-corrected qubits in so-called GKB states, named after the discoverers of quantum error correction Daniel Gottesman, Alexei Kitaev and John Preskill. This produces light beams with a checkerboard-like spectrum, which allows deformations and shifts in the light lattice to be corrected relatively reliably.
Xanadu's photonic approach offers the advantages of scalability to 1 million qubits via an optical network and calculations at room temperature. With imec, Xanadu has now found the right partner to develop and manufacture the corresponding high-performance photonic chips. "Imec is one of the few research centers that can accommodate this cutting-edge technology on advanced 200 mm and 300 mm silicon wafers," says Zachary Vernon, head of Xanadu's hardware team. imec offers volume production of 200 mm wafers and can deliver up to a thousand wafers per year per customer.
Amin Abbasi, Business Development Manager at imec, also welcomes the cooperation with Xanadu: "We are delighted that our low-loss SiN photonics platform, which was originally developed for communications, is finding its way into other advanced applications such as quantum computing."
