Xanadu announces a collaboration with Applied Materials to create the first 300 mm high-volume-compatible process for building superconducting transition edge sensors (TESs). These TESs are essential components of photon-number-resolving detectors (PNRs), which are required for the qubit state preparation procedure in Xanadu’s photonic quantum computers.
Xanadu’s landmark demonstration of its Aurora quantum computer, published in Nature earlier this year, paved the road for a utility-scale photonic quantum computer by showcasing the first modular, scalable, and networkable quantum computer.
As company focuses on minimizing optical loss across various components in order to achieve fault tolerance, it also anticipates when its quantum computer will be ready to be scaled up to a full-fledged quantum data center.
To minimize production costs while meeting the strict constraints on detector performance, quality, and production volume, such scaling will necessitate mass semiconductor manufacturing capabilities of different components, including TESs for PNRs.
This partnership extends on previous work done by Xanadu and Applied Materials on materials optimization for TES production techniques. Over the following year, the two teams hope to show the first 300 mm platform for developing TESs for PNRs.
Once a baseline demonstration of the platform’s capabilities is accomplished by the end of 2025, the Xanadu and Applied Materials teams plan to continue optimizing its performance to satisfy the needs of high-throughput, high-reliability fabrication before ramping up for mass production.
Leadership Comments
“Utility-scale quantum computers have exacting fabrication processing demands that require us to continually push what is possible in the fab. Applied Materials has been a tremendous collaborator for us over the years and we are excited to continue working with them on new materials fabrication challenges,” says Elliott Ortmann, Head of Fabrication Process Engineering at Xanadu. “Developing the first 300 mm process for TESs opens up the ability to leverage the most advanced fabrication tools to produce higher quality and better-performing devices.”
“Applied Materials’ collaboration with Xanadu is focused on developing scalable fabrication approaches that can create better quantum devices for the industry,” said Dr. Robert Visser, Vice President of Engineering in the Office of the CTO at Applied Materials. “Xanadu’s TES design requires advanced materials engineering and process control – areas where Applied brings decades of expertise with 300 mm semiconductor platforms.”
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