A research team formed by Boston University, University of California, Burkeley and Northwestern University has successfully created the world's first hybrid chip that integrates quantum light sources and control electronic components, and completed the prototype production through a commercial 45-nanometer CMOS process, and made a key step in quantum chip development.
The research results have been published in the journal Nature Electronics. The team uses silicon-based "micro-ring resonators" as quantum light sources, and generates "correlated photon pairs" through non-linear optical effects, providing key qubits for quantum communication, sensing, and computing applications.
Qubit's biggest challenge is poor stability and is easily disturbed by slight environmental fluctuations, resulting in operation errors, which in turn increases cooling and environmental control costs. To solve this problem, the team built an optical inductor and a miniature heater in each resonator, combining the control logic on the chip, which can monitor and automatically calibrate the resonance frequency in real time, and can stably produce quantum light even when facing temperature and electromagnetic interference.
This design allows the chip to have the ability to "self-monitor and self-calibrate", which significantly improves stability and lays the foundation for quantum devices to introduce packaging integration and scale expansion.
As quantum technology continues to attract attention, this type of chip is expected to be applied in secure communication networks, high-level sensing devices and quantum computer architectures in the future. Especially in quantum networks, the components that are stable and control photon pairs will be the key basis; and in induction and computing scenarios, modules with real-time control and on-chip integration capabilities will also help improve system stability and accuracy.
Although this technical integration is highly potential, it is still in the single product stage and has not yet entered large-scale manufacturing. The research team has not yet made full public cost, yield and actual quantum computing application performance.
If we want to further promote the implementation of the industry in the future, we still need to rely on cross-domain technical integration and application site verification in order to promote this quantum chip from prototype to mature commercialization.
World’s First Hybrid Chip Combines Electronics, Photonics, and Quantum Power