Walther‐Meissner‐Institut
The Walther-Meißner-Institute for Low Temperature Research (WMI) is a research institute of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BAdW). It conducts fundamental and applied research in the field of low and ultra-low temperature physics with special focus on quantum systems, quantum computing, superconductivity and correlated electron systems, as well as magnetism and spintronics. It also develops low and ultra-low temperature methods, measurement techniques for characterizing quantum systems and matter at extreme conditions, as well as method for the growth of single cystals and thin film heterostuctures of quantum matter.
Team
WMI’s superconducting quantum circuits group has more than 15 years of experience in fabricating and characterization of micro- and nano-scale aluminum and niobium thin film structures at microwave frequencies. It operates all necessary facilities to fabricate, characterize and control superconducting quantum circuits. These include an electrical workshop and a mechanical precision engineering workshop with substantial experience in cryo- and microwave technology. WMI operates several dilution refrigerators for experiments on superconducting circuits and magnetic systems including a large diameter XLD Bluefors cryostat and a fast turnaround bottom-loading cryostat. It operates a 50m2 class 1000 clean room and several grey rooms including a 100keV electron beam lithography system, a dedicated deposition system for Josephson Junction fabrication, sputter deposition and reactive ion etching tools and a scanning electron microscope for sample inspection. Research topics include flux and transmon qubits, tunable and ultrastrong coupling, as well as propagating quantum microwaves. With the appointment of Prof. Stefan Filipp quantum computing with superconducting qubits has become a focus activity with the goal to explore novel approaches and to realize quantum processor demonstrators.
Main tasks in the project
WMI is coordinating the GeQCoS project. It will combine the partners’ activities to realize a functional quantum processor demonstrator and demonstrate its performance using a suitable algorithms that is co-developed with the theory partners. The WMI will explore multi-qubit coupler for increased qubit-qubit connectivity, improve read-out fidelities with parametric amplifiers and explore architecture with alternative superconducting qubits. The research in this project is geared towards further scaling and towards practical applications. The aim is to make the quantum processor available for a larger user group to foster research and development in quantum computing.
Expertise of staff members involved
Prof. Dr. Stefan Filipp: Professor at the Physics Department of the Technical University of Munich, Director of the Walther-Meißner-Institute of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Stefan Filipp has been appointed Professor in Technical Physics at the TU Munich and Director of the Walther-Meissner-Institute of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 2020. Before he has led the superconducting qubit team at the IBM Research – Zurich Laboratory to develop architectures for quantum computing based on superconducting circuits. He has joined IBM in 2014 as permanent research staff member of the experimental quantum computing team at IBM T.J. Watson Research lab in Yorktown Heights, NY, US. He has received his degree in physics from the Vienna University of Technology, Austria, and the Uppsala University, Sweden for his theoretical work on bounds on quantum correlations and off-diagonal geometric phases. He completed his Ph.D. at the Vienna University of Technology in 2006 with his thesis on the experimental observation of geometric phases in neutron interferometry, for which he was awarded the Victor-Hess Award. He then moved to ETH Zurich to work as Postdoc and later Senior Researcher on quantum computing, quantum simulation and quantum optics with superconducting circuits.
ResearcherID: F-4775-2013
ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0002-1976-1817
Google Scholar: Stefan Filipp
Prof. Dr. Rudolf Gross: Professor at the Physics Department of the Technical University of Munich, Director of the Walther-Meißner-Institute of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities
Rudolf Gross is a full professor at the Technical University of Munich since 2000. His research focuses on superconductivity and magnetism, in particular on the dynamics and quantum properties of superconducting and magnetic devices. With artificial atoms based on superconducting quantum circuits he studies quantum optics on a chip by investigating how these artificial atoms interact with microwave photons. He also studies the interaction of quantized excitations such as photons, magnons, phonon etc. in hybrid quantum devices. One particular interest is quantum microwave photonics and its application in quantum microwave communication and sensing. Finally, he has general interest in quantum information systems based on superconducting quantum circuits, with the long-term goal to build a quantum computer.
Rudolf Gross is member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities. He was spokesperson (2003-2015) of the first Collaborative Research Center of the German Research Foundation on solid-state quantum information systems. He is spokesperson of the Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST) and one of the initiators of the Munich Quantum Valley (MQV).
Prizes: Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Medal of TUM (2015), Silver Medal of Merit of BAdW (2015), Leibniz Medal of IFW Dresden (2015), Friedrich-Förster Award (1984)
ResearcherID: A-6227-2012
ORCID ID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4524-7552
Google Scholar: Rudolf Gross
