Archer achieves qubit material functionality at room temperature in air

Highlights

• Archer Materials has engineered its qubit material to mimic a high vacuum environment, preserving quantum functionality at room temperature in air.
• The semiconductor fabrication process is foundry-compatible and has the potential for technology translation to industrially scale Archer’s ¹²CQ qubit chip architecture.
• The preservation of quantum coherence in Archer’s qubit material at room temperature in air demonstrates a significant advantage over qubit proposals that are difficult to integrate onboard modern day devices.
• Archer’s unique qubit material is conveniently made from carbon, yet robust enough to generate quantum states for long enough times needed for quantum logic operations.
• Archer Materials is the only ASX listed company and one of a few players in the world developing qubit processor technology.
  

SYDNEY, Australia, June 19, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Archer Materials Limited (“Archer”, the “Company”, “ASX: AXE”), a semiconductor company that advances the quantum computing and medical diagnostics industries, has achieved a significant development milestone in the functionality of its cutting-edge qubit material.

The Company recently optimised the room-temperature functionality of its qubit material (ASX ann. 8 Jun, 2023). Until now, there was a need for a vacuum or inert atmosphere when operating the qubit material to preserve viable quantum coherence times. To advance the Company’s ¹²CQ chip development, there is a requirement for simple and practical solutions to address quantum decoherence caused by air on the qubit material.

The Archer team has now for the first time preserved the qubit materials’ quantum coherence times and properties¹ at room temperature in air while maintaining the intrinsic metallic-like character of the qubit material². Importantly, the quantum coherence times meet the lower-bound requirements to perform gate operations for quantum information processing¹. In the context of qubit processor development, applying foundry-compatible processes to readily handle and process a qubit material while preserving quantum coherence is significant.

The Archer team was able to achieve this pivotal development by applying methods of atomic layer deposition (“ALD”) and also plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (“PECVD”), to encapsulate the qubit material with atom-layer control over nanometre and micrometre thin films of metal oxides and other semiconductors.