Chinese scientific research team successfully developed “quantum chip refrigerator”: it has been put into use to keep chips fresh
China’s first high-vacuum storage box for quantum chips has been successfully developed and put into use. Researchers vividly call it a “quantum chip refrigerator”.
According to Jia Zhilong, deputy director of the Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center in Anhui Province, the quantum chip high-vacuum storage box has three storage chambers, and each chamber can be operated independently.
At the same time, it is equipped with an intelligent monitoring system, which can monitor the vacuum degree in real time and provide a stable high-vacuum environment for the chip preservation process.
In addition, the R&D personnel have also developed a human-computer interaction function interface, which can realize the fully automatic operation of the equipment.
Jia Zhilong said,The superconducting material in the quantum chip is highly sensitive to the environment. If the environment is not up to standard during the production and storage process, it will easily react with oxygen and water molecules in the air and adsorb various impurities.
The key components of quantum chips, such as Josephson junctions and superconducting capacitors, will age as a result, resulting in poor frequency consistency of qubits and a decrease in the coherence time of quantum chips, which will ultimately affect the performance of quantum chips.
Just like food oxidizes and rots when exposed to air, if quantum chips are not properly preserved, they will also be unusable because they are “not fresh”.
The original quantum team adopted high-vacuum storage technology and independently developed this high-vacuum storage box for quantum chips. It can provide a high-vacuum storage environment for quantum chips, just like a refrigerator for quantum chips. R&D personnel use it to adjust the indoor storage space. Pressure, so as to ‘keep fresh’ for the quantum chip and prevent it from losing its effectiveness.