Development and Applications of Germanium Quantum Technologies

In the race towards a fault-tolerant quantum computer, the semiconducting qubit platform is the only one that has, thus far, been shown to be scalable. Germanium qubits are a new type of semiconducting qubits, and their progress has been exceptionally fast since the development of the material in 2018.
You will learn about the physics behind Germanium qubits, their advantages, and challenges compared to other qubit platforms, and the electrical components that are needed to control them. In addition, you will familiarize yourself with different companies from the semiconducting industry, the fabrication facilities, and the latest developments in the field.

This course is a collaboration between several parties, all of whom have state-of-the-art facilities for fabrication, control, or applications using Germanium qubits. By taking this course you will have the opportunity to learn about Germanium qubits from professionals in the field who are conducting innovative research that is not being done elsewhere.

The course is a journey of discovery, so we encourage you to bring your own experiences, insights, and thoughts via the forum!

This course was supported by IGNITE – Integrated Germanium Quantum Technology. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe Programme under grant agreement no.101069515.

WEEK 1: Semiconductor devices and materials

• Semiconductor devices - industrial approach
  • What can CMOS technology do for quantum computing?
  • Semiconductor devices and their scaling using the industrial approach
  • Semiconductor foundry facilities: the good and the bad for qubits
  • IMEC's latest qubit developments
  • Summary and outlook
• Semiconductor materials - structure and growth
  • Semiconductors for spin qubits
  • Germanium quantum wells on silicon
  • Germanium quantum wells on silicon-germanium
  • Growth methods
  • Characterization techniques

WEEK 2: Germanium qubits

• Quantum dot qubits and Germanium physics
• Germanium qubits - single spin and scaling
• Germanium qubits - multi-spin encodings
  • Physics of holes
  • Hole spin qubits
• Mid-term exam (multiple choice)

WEEK 3: Tuning quantum dots

• Electronics for quantum computing
  • Introduction to electronics for quantum computing
  • Room temperature electronics
  • Cryogenic qubit chip carriers
  • Contribution to IGNITE
• Quantum dots auto-tuning - experimental
  • Auto-tuning a quantum computer
  • Tuning and operation of arrays
  • Finding operation points example
• Quantum dots auto-tuning - theor
  • What is auto-tuning?
  • Neural network tuning
  • Navigating charge stability diagrams
  • Experimental implementation
  • Towards universal quantum algorithms

WEEK 4: Quantum error correction and quantum algorithms

• Quantum error correction
  • Classical error correction
  • Quantum error correction
  • Progress and challenges
• Quantum algorithms
  • Introduction to quantum algorithms
  • The first algorithms
  • Quantum annealing
  • Quantum machine learning

WEEK 5:

• Final exam (multiple choice)