As a central component of the collaboration, Denmark has acquired its first facility with the capacity to produce wafers of the leading 300 mm standard. Wafers are the thin, ultra-pure slices of crystal material deposited on silicon, from which the chips are built, and which are grown in an advanced high-tech process. The new facility doesn’t just manufacture advanced wafers – it’s also being used to speed up the development of quantum chips. The special machine, which is the heart of the new facility, specializes in making photonic chips – i.e. light-based chips – which constitute the future solution within high-speed communication, optical data processing and also photonic quantum circuits. The method used by the machine is called molecular beam epitaxy, and it makes it possible to deposit extremely thin layers of atoms on the wafers with enormous precision and purity. And it is precisely this precision and purity that makes it possible to also produce quantum chips on the machine. The POEM facility is open to industrial partners who want to manufacture prototype chips for research and innovation purposes. The facility is located in the new Niels Bohr Building, where the daily operation will be handled by engineers and technicians from NQCP and RIBER.
