Two years of successful research to establish a European supply chain for materials and production processes for Qubits

The EU project MATQu (Materials for Quantum Computing) successfully completed the second project year in May. For this purpose, the second review meeting with the Program Officer of the Key Digital Technologies Joint Undertaking (KDT JU), external reviewers, and the project experts took place at Fraunhofer IAF in Freiburg from July 4 to 5, 2023. The project team presented the latest results, including technical presentations and first demonstrators.

At the second review meeting of the project MATQu at Fraunhofer IAF the progress of the individual work packages was evaluated and the partners demonstrated encouraging results on the materials, process technology, integration of silicon Josephson junctions, and their variability characterization. These results are based on a joint European effort with a variety of partners, especially from RTOs and industry.

The MATQu project, funded by the European Union, brings together 18 leading European research and technology organizations in the field of solid-state quantum technologies, such as the French Laboratoire d’électronique et de technologie de l’information (CEA-Leti) and Interuniversity Microelectronics Centre (IMEC) from Belgium, to create a European supply chain for materials and production processes. MATQu is coordinated by the Research Fab Microelectronics Germany (FMD) and the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Solid State Physics IAF.

Measurement and characterization technologies are a key building block to achieve this goal. Here, Fraunhofer IAF contributes its expertise and infrastructure in the field of cryogenic measurement technology and thus offers European companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups, access to state-of-the-art test and characterization equipment in addition to the necessary know-how through MATQu. This key competence for the development of quantum hardware forms a basis for the establishment of a European value chain of industrially ready quantum computers.