Archer achieves qubit material functionality at room temperature in air - Seite 2

A typical example of encapsulation included approximately 20-25 atomistic layers on the nanometer sized qubit material that was processed in conformations relevant to planar device architectures. The processes are performed in a semiconductor foundry (Image 1). The qubit material was preserved despite the processing methods. ALD and PECVD are key processes in fabricating semiconductor devices.

Image 1. Archer staff in a research and prototyping semiconductor foundry in Sydney, Australia, operating some of the instruments used to encapsulate the qubit material.

Commenting on the newly developed nanomaterials technology, Dr Mohammad Choucair, CEO of Archer, said,

“This is a major achievement for Archer’s qubit development. It shows the strength of Archer’s strategy to be an enabler for the sector, with our innovations making qubit materials potentially more accessible and more easily embedded in modern day semiconductor fabrication processes for quantum logic device manufacture”.

“Archer has now demonstrated its qubit materials’ quantum coherence times observed at room temperature can be achieved under normal conditions, in air. This means the approach has the potential for technology translation to industrially scale Archer’s ¹²CQ qubit chip architecture.

“It is remarkable that Archer’s carbon qubit material is so readily produced yet remains robust post-processing to generate the fragile quantum states for the long enough periods of time needed for quantum logic operations in the qubit devices we are developing.

“Archer continues to move closer to making quantum processing devices in a much more easily-produced reality in everyday electronics with this latest milestone.”

Background

Quantum coherence is the fundamental requirement for quantum logic operations that are the basis of any quantum computing qubit processor hardware. For potential integration and use of qubit materials in practical chip devices, it is significant to demonstrate and validate robustness at room temperature and under atmospheric environments.

Earlier this year, Archer announced that it was working towards a potential breakthrough in the semiconductor foundry packaging of the ¹²CQ chip architecture (ASX ann. Mar 16, 2023). As part of that work, Archer’s nanodevice engineers have been progressing the development of a method to encapsulate its qubit material. The encapsulation approach involves coating the qubit material with a nanometre-thin passivation layer, mimicking an ‘artificial vacuum’. The primary purpose of the encapsulation is to allow the qubit material to function under ambient conditions³. The work used common semiconductor foundry cleanroom processing methods.