Fraunhofer ILT initiating strategic alliances with quantum partners

(Optics.org) Leading universities and research institutions in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state government havelaunched the competence network EIN Quantum NRW.
The network partners are pooling their expertise in researching and implementing quantum technologies to help players from industry and science network more effectively, and to create a broad knowledge infrastructure. Also involved is the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, which is focusing on technology transfer to industry.
Together with the Fraunhofer Institutes FHR (High Frequency Physics & Radar), IAIS (Intelligent Analysis & Information Systems), IMS (Microelectronics) and SCAI (Scientific Computing) located in NRW, Fraunhofer ILT (Laser Technology) and the Research Center Jülich are establishing a Center of Quantum Science and Engineering in the Rhineland region.
On an international level, the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft and the Dutch research center QuTech – a collaboration of TU Delft and TNO – already joined forces in December 2021, signing a Memorandum of Understanding for cooperation in the field of quantum networks.
n the run-up to this cooperation, Fraunhofer ILT and QuTech developed a quantum frequency converter (QFC) with a world record for low noise – a significant step toward achieving a stable quantum internet. The partners said that “the overall QFC efficiency is comparable to that of converters based on conventional design principles”.
However, compared to the current state of the art in NV (nitrogen vacancy) center qubits, the number of noise photons is simultaneously reduced by at least a factor of four, resulting in a significantly increased signal-to-noise ratio for the transfer of quantum information.