Quantum Simulators (QS) are systems that evolve a physical process obeying to the same constituent laws of quantum mechanics as the system under examination. While QS are still in their infancy, an industrial model would need a large degree of automation to address the hardware system calls, interpret results from measurements and perform recursive quantum calculations without continuous user input. Crucial to the widespread diffusion of quantum technologies in Europe should be the ease of manufacturing of portable devices (compatible with standard and scalable fabrication technologies) and their use (acceptable energy consumption, e.g. no need of helium cooling).

At the center of INPEQUT lays the idea to implement a full photonic/electronic integration to demonstrate the first breakthrough prototype device, which will perform standard operations to simulate a quantum mechanical problem in a compact device operating at or close to room temperatures. It will address the fundamental cornerstone in the development of QS technologies from the lab towards actual applications using portable devices. Within this project we aim to develop a 2.5D-integrated quantum simulator, where (i) a quantum photonic circuitry (QPC) handling both NIR entangled photon (nonlinear Silicon Nitride waveguides) and qubit manipulation architectures will be (ii) fully and monolithically integrated with single-photon resolving detectors (Si SPAD) operating at close-to-room temperatures.

To this end INPEQUT will demonstrate:

• A viable technological platform for monolithic integration of arbitrary QPC architectures with arrays of Si SPADs, pointing to low-loss and efficient optical coupling to SPAD detectors, and photon detection efficiencies of at least 50% at 850 nm and primary dark count level <500Hz (single SPAD) at RT. The SPAD microcell will be based on the FBK’s existing NIR-HD SiPM technology, which provides state-of-the-art performances in terms of PDE and noise.

• Parallel Single Photon readout system for timing and counting events at the output of a reconfigurable Quantum Photonic Gate.

Our proposal addresses a series of challenges listed in the European QT roadmap 2016: INPEQUT will provide a test-bed for the future LOQC (linear optics quantum computing) and integration of a microoptics-based chip-scale Quantum Photonic Circuits into traditional microelectronic systems. A successful implementation of INPEQUT demonstrator will provide a basis to setup a consortium formed by leading European universities, research centres and companies specialised in the field of quantum physics, informatics, photonics, laser technology and microelectronics. The project aims at seeding the development of chip-scale integrated Quantum Photonic Architectures with close to RT photon-number resolving Detectors, which are expected to achieve a maturity for integration into real-world devices (supercomputers) within a few years from now.

Thus, the project INPEQUT has an ambition to set up a smart scalable technological solution pointing to demonstrate a relevant building block for quantum technologies strategic for the quest for a breakthrough technology in Europe.