The nascent quantum technology supply chain has reached an inflection point as companies large and small – among them household names like Google, Microsoft and IBM as well as a new wave of ambitious start-up ventures – shift gears to translate their applied research endeavours into at-scale commercial opportunities in quantum computing, quantum communications and quantum metrology. At the heart of this emerging quantum ecosystem is attocube, a German manufacturer of specialist nanotechnology solutions for research and industry, which is aligning its product development roadmap to deliver the R&D and manufacturing tools needed to support the scale-up and commercialization of next-generation quantum technologies.

“We are facilitators of cutting-edge quantum R&D and technology innovation,” explains Khaled Karraï, co-founder and scientific director at attocube. That starts and ends, of course, with a granular understanding of the customers’ evolving requirements – not least when it comes to navigating the complex transition from research lab to manufacturing and, ultimately, long-term commercial impact. “Quantum is in our DNA at attocube, so we are extremely well positioned to service the needs of the quantum supply chain,” argues Karraï. “After all,” he adds, “we have worked hand-in-hand with quantum scientists in the academic world for the past 30 years. Many of those pioneering researchers are now in senior R&D and engineering positions in industry – and they’re coming to us for the enabling technologies they’ll need for the next stage on the quantum roadmap.”

Multiphysics innovation

By extension, the supporting product portfolio at attocube covers a lot of bases, including compact and low-vibration closed-cycle cryostats (with low-heat-generation compressors) and precision-motion components (such as nanopositioners and displacement-measuring interferometers) to align, operate and test advanced quantum components/subsystems. Downstream, those attocube products are put to work across a range of operating conditions – from ambient to ultralow temperatures, from low to ultrahigh vacuum, as well as within tightly constrained magnetic fields – to maintain the delicate quantum states and processes – think single-photon sources, trapped ions or superconducting or photonic qubits – within the core building blocks of quantum computing systems and quantum communication networks.

“Low-temperature nanopositioning and low-vibration cryogenics are among our core competencies at attocube,” notes Karraï. Equally important is what he calls a “multiphysics and multiengineering mindset” to ensure an integrated approach to product design and engineering. “Take position sensing at the nanoscale,” says Karraï. “This is a tricky enough proposition at room temperature, but it requires all sorts of innovative thinking when you throw in additional operating constraints like cryogenic temperatures, high vacuum and the need for miniaturization.”

Putting the focus on translation

Meanwhile, as quantum technology companies eye sustainable commercial opportunities over the near and medium term, the focus must necessarily shift to “productization” and hard-and-fast industrial metrics like scalability, reliability, manufacturability, robustness and cost:performance. Along that same coordinate lies a consideration of the operational running costs associated with first-generation quantum systems. A case in point: the energy-efficiency of the quantum repeaters that will be required every 100 km or so to boost optical signals within the quantum communication network – and, ultimately, across the quantum Internet.

“Take a scenario where you want to cool an optical detector in a quantum repeater to, say, 2 K,” explains Karraï. “Today, you have to put 3 kW of energy in to generate something like 20 mW of cooling power. Now imagine that imbalance inside every quantum repeater within the long-haul fibre-optic network – the planet will be glowing.”

The answer, he believes, is the recently launched attoCMC, a compact and rack-mountable cryostat for in-field deployment (see “Working together to realize quantum advantage”, below). “With the attoCMC, we are delivering an order-of-magnitude reduction in energy consumption for the cryogenic subsystem,” claims Karraï. “This represents a step-change in energy-efficiency for quantum technology companies, giving them access to enhanced cooling capabilities for their distributed quantum computing and networking systems.”

Better together

Notwithstanding an over-arching emphasis on platform technologies that “unlock the creativity, ingenuity and imagination of our end-users”, Karraï highlights another key differentiator of the attocube working model – specifically, a vendor–customer relationship that moves beyond the transactional into the realm of collaborative R&D and co-development.

It helps, in this regard, that many quantum technology companies have spun out from academia, subsequently recruiting specialists in industrialization and scale-up from other, more established tech sectors. “As a specialist equipment provider,” notes Karraï, “we need to be able to talk on a couple of levels with these customers – engaging their scientists and engineers on the one hand as well as the new breed of manufacturing specialists who want ready-made cryogenic or nanopositioning solutions built to their custom specification.”

The secret of success, argues Karraï, lies in an open, honest dialogue upfront between equipment supplier and customer. “It’s that informed conversation around technical requirements that’s so valuable at the initiation point,” he concludes. “Many of our product engineers have PhDs in quantum science and engineering, so are the best anchor-point for that dialogue around requirements-gathering. From here, our industrial customers quickly realize they can learn an awful lot by tapping into our collective domain knowledge in quantum technologies.”