According to a recent report on the official website of the University of New South Wales in Australia, scientists at the university have demonstrated that they can build atomically precise qubits in 3D devices and achieve accurate interlayer alignment and high-precision spin state measurement, ultimately obtaining the world's first 3D atomic-level silicon quantum chip architecture, taking an important step toward building large-scale quantum computers.
In the latest research, Professor Michelle Simons, leading a research team at the Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computing and Communication Technologies at the University of New South Wales, applied atomic-level qubit fabrication technology to multilayer silicon crystals, obtaining this 3D atomic-level quantum chip architecture.
Simons explained, “This 3D architecture is a significant advancement for atomic-level silicon qubits. To continuously correct errors in quantum computing—a milestone in the field—we must be able to control many qubits in parallel. The only way to achieve this is using a 3D architecture, so in 2015 we developed a vertically intersecting architecture and filed a patent. However, fabricating such multi-layered devices still faces a number of challenges. Now, we have demonstrated through new research that the 3D approach we envisioned a few years ago is feasible.”
Inside the new 3D design, atomic-level qubits are aligned with control lines (very fine lines). Furthermore, the team achieved nanometer-precision alignment between different layers in the 3D device—they demonstrated a technique capable of 5-nanometer-precision alignment.
Finally, the researchers also obtained the qubit output of the 3D device through a single measurement, without having to rely on the average of millions of experiments, which is expected to promote further upgrades to the technology.
Professor Simmons said that although large-scale quantum computers are still at least a decade away, we are systematically studying large-scale architectures, which will lead us to eventually commercialize the technology.
