Laser Focus World, September 2022
Integrated quantum photonics offers a paradigm shift for quantum computing, quantum communications, and quantum sensing.
Highly flexible, low-loss photonic multichip integration
In a fully functional optical quantum computer, the aforementioned promising platforms to generate, process, and detect photons need to be incorporated. Vanguard Automation’s (Karlsruhe, Germany) photonic wire bonding and 3D-printed microlenses technology combines the complementary strengths of these different optical integration platforms in advanced photonic multichip modules, leading to compactness with high performance and great design flexibility necessary to reach the challenging requirements of a fully functional optical quantum computer. The technique relies on highly precise direct-write 3D laser lithography for printing of freeform single-mode waveguides between optical dies, thereby offering a path towards fully automatable photonic packaging up to mass production without the need for active alignment.
3D nanoprinting can also be used to fabricate facet-attached beam-shaping elements on optical chips and fibers, allowing for low-loss coupling with high alignment tolerance and for wafer-level probing of optical devices. The photonic wire bonds and 3D-printed microlenses have already demonstrated their capabilities in quantum applications (see Fig. 4).
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