NSF awards Princeton $28M to lead institute building better qubits

Princeton University will lead a new $27.9 million institute funded by the National Science Foundation, focused on overcoming a critical manufacturing bottleneck hindering the development of scalable quantum computers. For a quarter century, the quantum computing community has relied on the same materials technology, a foundation now seen as limiting progress toward scientifically useful systems.

“The whole community has been using essentially the same materials technology for about a quarter century,” said Nathalie de Leon, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Princeton and the institute’s director, explaining the need to reinvent these basic elements. The institute, named MARQUIS, will draw upon expertise from nine research institutions to address this core challenge in materials science, quantum devices, and semiconductor processing.

MARQUIS Institute Addresses Quantum Component Manufacturing Bottleneck

The newly established MARQUIS Institute will receive $27.9 million in National Science Foundation funding over five years to address a critical, longstanding limitation in quantum computing hardware. This funding is part of a $290 million investment in Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes, and aims to overcome manufacturing bottlenecks preventing the scaling of quantum processors to sizes capable of solving complex scientific problems. Valla Fatemi, a physicist at Cornell University and deputy director, explained the challenge: “There’s a huge barrier to solving the problem,” emphasizing the need for a multi-disciplinary approach.

This collaborative effort seeks to move beyond incremental improvements to fundamentally reimagine the fabrication of Josephson junctions, the components where pairs of electrons manipulate quantum information. The institute’s focus is entirely on finding new approaches to fabricating these junctions, a departure from the materials used in the first superconducting qubits over twenty-five years ago.

Beyond materials innovation, MARQUIS will establish standardized testing methods and “test beds” for mid-scale quantum processors. These facilities will allow researchers to validate designs and compare performance across different laboratories, fostering collaboration and accelerating the pace of discovery. De Leon explained that in the semiconductor industry, a lot of the best knowledge is often proprietary.

She added that the vast amount of existing literature makes it difficult to identify key insights and best practices, so having experts who understand the critical path forward is crucial. Brian Stone, performing the duties of the NSF director, affirmed the long-term vision, stating, “It’s time for focused activities to leverage that base of knowledge to drive us even farther forward to the benefit of all Americans.”

Princeton Team’s Advances in Superconducting Qubit Performance

Current junctions universally employ aluminum and aluminum oxide, a design unchanged for over twenty-five years, despite its limitations in achieving greater computational scale. David Graves, a Princeton professor of chemical and biological engineering, will serve as a co-principal investigator, bringing expertise in semiconductor processing techniques. De Leon emphasized the importance of bridging the gap between quantum research and established semiconductor industry knowledge, stating that a coordinated, interdisciplinary approach is essential. She summarized the institute’s ambition by saying, “Let’s make a dream team to try to unblock this.”