Rapid and Scalable Single Colour-Centre Implantation for Single Photon Sources

Beams of ionised atoms find widespread use in many fields from production applications in semiconductors, to medical instrumentation and cancer diagnosis.

A new application of ion beams is the manufacture of Quantum Technology (QT) devices, allowing the future creation of immensely powerful Quantum Computers with applications including medical research and drug discovery. A QT that is already on the market is the Quantum Cryptography system for sending unbreakable codes, which relies on single photon transmission. At present the "qubits" that make up existing quantum computers, and the light emitters producing the single photons, are made only in research labs.

If the wider potential of QT is ever to be realised and reach the tipping point of widespread rather than niche commercialisation, the industry needs a manufacturing solution that is reliable and fast with high accurate ion placement. This is vital to be able to generate arrays of qubits for quantum computing.

Ion beam implantation could be that solution. However, there is a major challenge to ensure ions are placed with great accuracy and to ensure that there is precisely one atom in each quantum "qubit" or each single photon source emitter. For example, a cryptography system containing a light emitter with two emitter atoms inside would be useless, because then two photons will be generated in each pulse, giving the chance to capture one and eavesdrop the conversation.

Ionoptika's new Q-One single ion implantation system is aimed squarely at the emerging area of single atom QT device production. The remaining limiting factors are ensuring accurate ion placement (for array generation) and the availability of desirable ion sources from across the periodic table of the elements. Currently, a few sources are readily available, such as gallium and bismuth, but all are poor light emitters. Creating new sources is extremely difficult, requiring advanced expertise in metallurgy and ion beam physics, limiting commercial availability. Having this expertise is, currently, a pre-requisite to owning an ion implantation device, significantly limiting Q-One's market penetration.

Ionoptika and the University of Surrey will test the feasibility of a new quality control process for confirming accurate ion placement and investigate two new sources more relevant to the quantum industry. Ionoptika will then be able to develop an improved Q-One machine suitable for research and manufacture of quantum technologies, the first such device in the market.