QUROPE Quantum Information Processing and Communication in Europe

QuAmpere aims at further developing the best existing concepts of SET pumps (single-electron transport devices needed to control the number of electrons flowing in a unit time interval) and to combine them with single-electron detectors to create highly accurate quantum current sources, to be used as current standards in the future.  Furthermore, the necessary associated instrumentation is developed.  The key objective of the project is the implementation of capabilities and methodologies for the realisation and dissemination of the new SI base unit definition for the ampere.

We now have the ability to build electronic devices at the nanoscale and operate them at millikelvin temperatures, and this has opened up the possibility to design, operate and utilise devices based on quantum physics. Quantum devices have been used in electrical metrology for decades and now nanoscale single-electron current sources are about to take their place in the realization of the ampere.

The 20th century has produced two great theories in physics: the theory of relativity and quantum physics. Apparently, the two theories use a completely different set of conceptual tools.