| Project Detail |
Tackling quantum scalability with silicon carbide Quantum technology faces a scalability challenge: transitioning from tens to thousands of high-quality qubits essential for computational breakthroughs and quantum communication. Spin centres in silicon carbide (SiC) offer a promising solution due to their long spin lifetimes, strong near-infrared optical transitions, and compatibility with low-loss photonic networks. In this context, the EIC-funded QuSPARC project is pioneering wafer-scale processes to produce thousands of identical qubit sites on SiC wafers. By integrating optical micro-resonators, QuSPARC will optimise spin control, enabling fault-tolerant systems with high-fidelity initialisation, measurement and spin-photon entanglement. These innovations position SiC as a scalable platform for quantum devices, accelerating progress towards million-qubit systems and advancing the quantum revolution. Scalability is one of the core challenges of present-day quantum technology. While many promising demonstrations have been performed at the level of tens of qubits, a vast leap will be required to create systems with the many thousands of physical qubits with the outstanding quality needed for the achievement of quantum computational advantage and high-bandwidth quantum communication. Spin centres in silicon carbide are an emerging platform for quantum information and communication. Some of these systems have long spin lifetimes and strong optical transitions in the near infrared optical spectrum. This optical band is advantageous for strong photonic enhancement, and for interfacing with low-loss waveguide and fiber networks. These defects possess electronic spins for photonic links, and nuclear spins for quantum information storage. The multilevel systems furthermore offer a platform for novel, resource-efficient quantum information methods based on high-dimensional encoding. Silicon carbide is a highly developed material platform, offering extremely high purity, transparency, and compatibility with eminently scalable semiconductor processing methods. In QuSPARC, we will develop and demonstrate wafer-scale processes to create thousands of near-identical qubit sites with spin control on a SiC wafer, and with optical enhancement interfaces using optical micro-resonators of extremely high quality. We will determine optimized methods for the control and readout of selected spin centres in SiC towards fault-tolerant implementations. Based on these insights, we will demonstrate high-fidelity spin initialization, spin measurement, spin-photon entanglement, and connectivity between sites on these microchips. QuSPARC will thereby achieve a disruptive step change in the development of scalable quantum information devices, leading the race towards the creation of million-qubit systems for high-performance quantum technology. |
