SQMS Center Announces the Addition of Rutgers University-New Brunswick to its Growing Collaboration

(HPCWire) The Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center hosted by Fermilab is proud to announce the addition of a new contributing partner: Rutgers University-New Brunswick.
The SQMS Center was established in September 2020 as a National Quantum Information Science Research Center. It comprises a diverse group of collaborators from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds.
Following its inception, SQMS established a rigorous process to onboard new partner institutions into the collaboration. Rutgers-New Brunswick joins 19 other collaborating institutions, representing federal labs, academia and industry. To date, more than 275 members — both national and international — conduct center research activities.
“Rutgers is extremely excited by this opportunity to collaborate with the efforts of SQMS. Quantum information science is a high-priority area for the university,” said Robert Bartynski, chair of the department of physics and astronomy at Rutgers-New Brunswick.
Srivatsan Chakram, an assistant professor in the department of physics and astronomy at Rutgers-New Brunswick, will serve as one of the principal investigators in the SQMS technology thrust, specifically in the devices and materials focus areas. “Having Professor Chakram as a principal investigator forms a natural bridge between the complementary expertise present at both organizations,” said Bartynski.
“Rutgers brings world-class expertise in the 3D superconducting quantum systems,” said Alexander Romanenko, Fermilab chief technology officer and SQMS technology thrust leader. “Professor Chakram is one of the world experts on the 3D superconducting qubit architecture and specifically on cavity-based quantum processors, where he performed some recent pioneering work.”
A primary focus of the SQMS Center is the extension of the lifetime of qubits, the foundational element of quantum computing. Extending the lifetime, or coherence time, of qubits increases the amount of time that they can exist in a quantum state and hold quantum information.