Periodic Reporting for period 2 - EPIQUS (Electronic-photonic integrated quantum simulator platform)
Période du rapport: 2021-10-01 au 2022-12-31
The simulation of quantum mechanical systems using conventional computers, requires resources, which grow exponentially with the system size. Quantum Simulators (QS) are devices that operate according to the laws of quantum mechanics and are capabile to simulate a broad range of quantum phenomena that relegate beyond the classical computer capabilities. Importantly, QSs, which can outperform best supercomputers, promise to deliver a new paradigm for applications in science and engineering without the daunting resource overhead required for universal quantum computation.
The calculation of a given Hamiltonian spectrum is a problem with wide applications, and can be of huge societal benefit: as exaples, they can be used to simulate unexplored materials with new properties or chemical reactions to foresee efficient pharmaceutical solutions as well as to predict financial market trends.
The project EPIQUS represents an ambitious and concrete step towards transformative advances in quantum science, industry and society. In fact, the success of EPIQUS is expected to fill up the existing gap between the largely advanced fundamental knowledge of Quantum Science and technologically uncertain industrial sector. This project has the ambition to set up a smart scalable technological solution which points to minimize the risk of fragmentation and replication of efforts towards the quest for a breakthrough technology in Europe.
The radical vision of EPIQUS is to set a cornerstone for the future of quantum science and information technologies with a clear objective to develop a chip-scale quantum photonic-electronic integrated platform, fully interfaced to a classical computer. This reconfigurable photonic-qubit device will be a testbed for a quantum simulator to address both Artificial Intelligence (Quantum Machine Learning) and Physics (Heisenberg-Spin Systems) tasks. All the necessary functionalities – scalable near-infrared photon pair sources, reconfigurable quantum interference circuits and arrays of single photon detectors – will be integrated within the same portable chip. The realization of such a technological platform will boost EU’s industrial ecosystem of the quantum information technologies to advance the long-term economic, scientific and social benefits.
The calculation of a given Hamiltonian spectrum is a problem with wide applications, and can be of huge societal benefit: as exaples, they can be used to simulate unexplored materials with new properties or chemical reactions to foresee efficient pharmaceutical solutions as well as to predict financial market trends.
The project EPIQUS represents an ambitious and concrete step towards transformative advances in quantum science, industry and society. In fact, the success of EPIQUS is expected to fill up the existing gap between the largely advanced fundamental knowledge of Quantum Science and technologically uncertain industrial sector. This project has the ambition to set up a smart scalable technological solution which points to minimize the risk of fragmentation and replication of efforts towards the quest for a breakthrough technology in Europe.
The radical vision of EPIQUS is to set a cornerstone for the future of quantum science and information technologies with a clear objective to develop a chip-scale quantum photonic-electronic integrated platform, fully interfaced to a classical computer. This reconfigurable photonic-qubit device will be a testbed for a quantum simulator to address both Artificial Intelligence (Quantum Machine Learning) and Physics (Heisenberg-Spin Systems) tasks. All the necessary functionalities – scalable near-infrared photon pair sources, reconfigurable quantum interference circuits and arrays of single photon detectors – will be integrated within the same portable chip. The realization of such a technological platform will boost EU’s industrial ecosystem of the quantum information technologies to advance the long-term economic, scientific and social benefits.
Y1
During the first year of the project EPIQUS, research was carried out along several lines, which are necessary to prepare the various developments for merging into a unique chip-scale device and guarantee the full functionality of EPIQUS’ QS device. In particular, the work in dedicated work packages have brought advances in:
1. setting a number of Quantum Problems and exploring their feasibility in quantum-optical experiments, as well as advanced quantum algorithms to aid the digital handling of hardware devices,
2. investigation of the diverse chip-scale components, such as the Single-Photon Sources and reconfigurable photonic circuits,
3. development of an efficient approach to on-chip readout of optical signals through appropriately designed photon-detectors,
4. development of advanced electronic circuitries capable to handle the large number of controls of the QS chip,
5. performing quantum simulations of some target molecules using quantum optical experiments.
The main results of the 1st year represent important advancements on both scientific and technological aspects of the project EPIQUS.
Y2
Continuous, partially independent developments of scientific WPs were put together in order to converge towards the realization of the first demonstrator QS device including the software and the hardware levels.
1. An optimal compiler for compiling of the circuits with lower depths on the actual hardware using SWAP strategies.
2. Hybrid classical-quantum algorithm assisted with STA methods - called digitized-counterdiabatic quantum approximate optimization algorithm - has been proposed showing an advantage in finding the ground-state of many-body Hamiltonians (e.g. the protein folding problem).
3.Experimental realization of non-adiabatic holonomic quantum gates and gate sequences, paving the way towards noise-resilient quantum computing in integrated quantum optics.
4. A SiN-based material platform was developed for nearly-ideal CMOS-compatible integrated photonic devices at near-visible wavelengths.
5. A variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) photonic circuit with optimized resources for a quantum mechanical simulation of the Hydrogen molecule was designed and is currently fabricated.
6. Q-PIC-to-SPAD coupling demionstrated in the quantum (single-photon + SPADs) regime, with very low dark count rates at room temperature.
7. Analog control circuitries were successfully developed and ASIC chips, including gater ASICs, have been completed and the tapeouts sent for fabrication.
8. PCB solutions for housing, testing and running the integrated QS have been designed. The Mainboard, different Hostboards as well as on-board FPGA for the readout (envisaged) firmware have all been developed.
During the first year of the project EPIQUS, research was carried out along several lines, which are necessary to prepare the various developments for merging into a unique chip-scale device and guarantee the full functionality of EPIQUS’ QS device. In particular, the work in dedicated work packages have brought advances in:
1. setting a number of Quantum Problems and exploring their feasibility in quantum-optical experiments, as well as advanced quantum algorithms to aid the digital handling of hardware devices,
2. investigation of the diverse chip-scale components, such as the Single-Photon Sources and reconfigurable photonic circuits,
3. development of an efficient approach to on-chip readout of optical signals through appropriately designed photon-detectors,
4. development of advanced electronic circuitries capable to handle the large number of controls of the QS chip,
5. performing quantum simulations of some target molecules using quantum optical experiments.
The main results of the 1st year represent important advancements on both scientific and technological aspects of the project EPIQUS.
Y2
Continuous, partially independent developments of scientific WPs were put together in order to converge towards the realization of the first demonstrator QS device including the software and the hardware levels.
1. An optimal compiler for compiling of the circuits with lower depths on the actual hardware using SWAP strategies.
2. Hybrid classical-quantum algorithm assisted with STA methods - called digitized-counterdiabatic quantum approximate optimization algorithm - has been proposed showing an advantage in finding the ground-state of many-body Hamiltonians (e.g. the protein folding problem).
3.Experimental realization of non-adiabatic holonomic quantum gates and gate sequences, paving the way towards noise-resilient quantum computing in integrated quantum optics.
4. A SiN-based material platform was developed for nearly-ideal CMOS-compatible integrated photonic devices at near-visible wavelengths.
5. A variational quantum eigensolver (VQE) photonic circuit with optimized resources for a quantum mechanical simulation of the Hydrogen molecule was designed and is currently fabricated.
6. Q-PIC-to-SPAD coupling demionstrated in the quantum (single-photon + SPADs) regime, with very low dark count rates at room temperature.
7. Analog control circuitries were successfully developed and ASIC chips, including gater ASICs, have been completed and the tapeouts sent for fabrication.
8. PCB solutions for housing, testing and running the integrated QS have been designed. The Mainboard, different Hostboards as well as on-board FPGA for the readout (envisaged) firmware have all been developed.
Most of the advancements during the 1st and 2nd years of the project are indicating to a progress beyond the state-of-the-art.
In particular,
1. EPIQUS partners have intensively developed theoretical methods for solving specific quantum problems in a novel approach which is faster and more efficient.
2. In EPIQUS, a quantum compiler has been developed which allows the end user to potentially run Quantum Simulations from a PC and collect experimental data from the hardware. This will be experimentally tested during the last year of the project.
3. The developed single-photon sources, adopted in EPIQUS, are relying on physical phenomena and a novel material platform which facilitate the practical on-chip generation of quantum bits in the visible to near-infrared spectral regions, where advanced Silicon photosensitive devices show large performance.
4. The first demonstrator device of EPIQUS, aiming at direct coupling of optical signals to chip-integrated detectors, has shown excellent results, proved also by a scientific publication as a rapid communication in a high impact journal (presenting a succinct announcement of an important new result that should be disseminated to the community quickly).
5. The first-time measurements of single photons through a PIC to SPAD monolithically coupled device with very low Dark Count Rates show and proof the original idea of EPIQUS that quantum photonic architectures and the single-photon detection can be sucessfully merged on a single Silicon chip to operate at room-temperature.
6. The development of new strategies of “reading” optical signals at sing-photon level are presenting novel technological solutions which go beyond the state-of the-art. Other than for QSs,they can be successfully employed in many other applications, where on-chip electrical readout of optical signals is neccessary.
It is expected, that starting from the 2nd year of the project all the diverse advancements will be merged into a unique hardware-software system pointing to the first fully-functional prototype device of EPIQUS which can perform reliable Quantum Simulations on a compact chip. In view of the progress of the 1st year, we expect that by the end of the project EPIQUS will present an advanced, proof-of-concept chip-scale demonstrator ready for a technological transfer into the industrial sector of the fast-growing Quantum Science and Technology.
In particular,
1. EPIQUS partners have intensively developed theoretical methods for solving specific quantum problems in a novel approach which is faster and more efficient.
2. In EPIQUS, a quantum compiler has been developed which allows the end user to potentially run Quantum Simulations from a PC and collect experimental data from the hardware. This will be experimentally tested during the last year of the project.
3. The developed single-photon sources, adopted in EPIQUS, are relying on physical phenomena and a novel material platform which facilitate the practical on-chip generation of quantum bits in the visible to near-infrared spectral regions, where advanced Silicon photosensitive devices show large performance.
4. The first demonstrator device of EPIQUS, aiming at direct coupling of optical signals to chip-integrated detectors, has shown excellent results, proved also by a scientific publication as a rapid communication in a high impact journal (presenting a succinct announcement of an important new result that should be disseminated to the community quickly).
5. The first-time measurements of single photons through a PIC to SPAD monolithically coupled device with very low Dark Count Rates show and proof the original idea of EPIQUS that quantum photonic architectures and the single-photon detection can be sucessfully merged on a single Silicon chip to operate at room-temperature.
6. The development of new strategies of “reading” optical signals at sing-photon level are presenting novel technological solutions which go beyond the state-of the-art. Other than for QSs,they can be successfully employed in many other applications, where on-chip electrical readout of optical signals is neccessary.
It is expected, that starting from the 2nd year of the project all the diverse advancements will be merged into a unique hardware-software system pointing to the first fully-functional prototype device of EPIQUS which can perform reliable Quantum Simulations on a compact chip. In view of the progress of the 1st year, we expect that by the end of the project EPIQUS will present an advanced, proof-of-concept chip-scale demonstrator ready for a technological transfer into the industrial sector of the fast-growing Quantum Science and Technology.