THIS IS A PRESS STATEMENT BY QPHOX

DELFT, THE NETHERLANDS. Engineers at QphoX have made significant steps in the realization of scalable optical interfaces for quantum computers. This week they reported their findings in Nature Nanotechnology.

Quantum computers are expected to tackle challenging problems which are beyond the capabilities of even the most powerful classical supercomputers today. At the same time, full error-corrected calculations will require tens of thousands or even millions of qubits. A key obstacle to this is finding a way to interface these qubits without overloading cryogenic systems. Typically, bulky coaxial cables are used to connect qubits to the outside world, but this limits scalability. By using optical interconnects many more qubits can be potentially packed into a single system and, for the first time, these systems could be networked together to scale quantum computers to their most important commercial applications.

At the same time, the devices that could allow for this scaling, microwave-to-optical transducers, must be very sensitive to the signal and very efficient to operate at the single photon level. In their recent article, the researchers at QphoX have demonstrated a new form of fully integrated transduction device that operates down to the single photon level. The transducer is compatible with the signals from leading superconducting quantum computing platforms. Additionally, the transduction process is fully integrated on a single chip and consumes a minimal amount of optical power, which will allow many devices to fit into a single cryostat.