MBIE Smart Idea funding awarded
We have been awarded $999,519 for Long distance connectivity for superconducting quantum-bits within the MBIE Smart Idea scheme!
some Press articles about it:
- Physics News
- [Otago Daily Times](https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/ otago-researchers-granted-5m)
- Otago News Bulletin
The goal of this project is to develop the technologies need to efficiently, coherently and reversibly convert individual microwave photons into individual optical photons.The motivation for this work is communicating and performing calculations using inherently quantum mechanical states. There has been spectacular progress towards this end using devices based on superconducting qubits. Superconducting qubits are small resonant circuits made of superconductor. One of their key advantages is that they are manufactured in a similar way to today’s computer chips with the same benefits of robustness and ease of manufacture at reasonable cost. One of the downsides is that they have to be cooled to only a fraction of a degree above absolute zero. These extreme operating temperatures mean that it is very hard to send quantum signals to and from the computer and currently there are no technologies that work. This lack of a quantum interface means superconducting qubit computers cannot be connected together to form quantum network. Severely limiting their application to super-secure quantum cryptography and to powerful distributed quantum computation.In this project we will improve the efficiency of the conversion of microwave photos to optical photons.
