QUROPE Quantum Information Processing and Communication in Europe

Information is physical. During the last decade, this basic concept has led to a revolution in our understanding of quantum mechanics. Less attention has been paid so far to equally important implications of this principle in statistical mechanics of small systems, where statistical fluctuations are large and make their thermodynamic properties extremely dependent on the information available. The most basic process illustrating the importance of information to statistical systems is the information-to-energy conversion in the famous Maxwell’s Demon (MD).

This project is at the intersection of photonics, RF signal processing and phononics, aiming to achieve an all-optical phononic circuit using coherent phonons as the state variable. The concept is based on cavity optomechanics (OM) to develop GHz- frequency in-chip phononic circuits for room temperature operation.

The QUANTIHEAT project tackles issues related to thermal metrology at the nanoscale and aims at delivering validated standards, methods and modeling tools for nanothermal designs and measurements.

The PAMS project will explore all sci­en­tific and tech­no­log­i­cal aspects of the fab­ri­ca­tion of pla­nar atomic and sub-​molecular scale elec­tronic devices on sur­faces of Si:H, Ge:H, AlN, CaCO3 (cal­cite) and CaF2 with atomic scale pre­ci­sion and reproducibility.

The vision of SECOQC is to provide European citizens, companies and institutions with a tool that allows facing the threats of future interception technologies, thus creating significant advantages for European economy.

SECOQC will provide the basis for long-range high security communication in a network regime that combines the entirely novel technology of quantum key distribution with solutions from classical computer science, network design and cryptography.

The ScaleQIT vision is to “develop a conceptual platform for potentially disruptive technologies, advance their scope and breadth and speed up the process of bringing them from the lab to the real world.” ScaleQIT will address the engineering side of quantum information processing (QIP), analyzing and implementing realistic scenarios for scaling-up superconducting hybrid systems for quantum computing and quantum simulation. The work will be based on proven, well-functioning circuits and components that show great promise for integration into useful QIP systems.

The overarching goal of our project is to use strong quantum correlations in order to develop systems, involving large-scale entanglement, that outperform classical systems in a series of relevant applications.

The best way to move toward this goal and to make it reachable on the medium term is to use or to design systems based on direct and deterministic interactions between individual quantum entities.

Our project objectives are to

This project brings together an interdisciplinary team of young, ambitious and internationally recognized researchers. The aim of the proposed research is to create a highly integrated device, which permits to manipulate, store and control light on a single-photon level using tailored quantum matter. Specifically, we will implement a three-dimensional optical lattice on an atom chip together with sophisticated waveguides for single-photon manipulation and detection, all integrated on the very same chip.

The goal of SCALA is the realisation of a scalable quantum computer, by using individually controlled atoms, ions and photons in order to encode, store, process and transmit qubits.

This long-term goal is divided into two specific objectives, achievable during the project duration:
A) Realisation of interconnected quantum gates and quantum wiring elements, which are required as building blocks of a general purpose quantum computer.
B) Realisation of first approaches of "operational" quantum computing, which include

We will focus our work on qubit applications that are based on physically realized photonic, atomic and solid-state systems. We will design, build and operate quantum memories that allow us to store and deterministically retrieve information encoded in quantum systems.