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The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) has opened in Barcelona the new Quantum Nanofabrication Area of the Clean Room at the Institute of Microelectronics of Barcelona (IMB-CNM), regarded as the largest research infrastructure of its kind in Spain.
The new facility will make it possible to manufacture and analyse devices and circuits at the nanometre scale for the development of quantum technologies and advanced microelectronics.
The facility, which has required an investment of more than six million euros, is funded through the PERTE Chip and the Complementary Plan for Quantum Communications, with support from the European Next Generation EU funds.
The area is equipped with state-of-the-art instruments, including Spain’s most advanced electron-beam lithography system, as well as microscopes and metrology tools capable of inspecting structures at nanometre dimensions.
These systems will be available to researchers and companies and will help drive progress in the design, manufacture and prototyping of technologies applicable to fields such as quantum computing and communications, healthcare, energy and security.
With this new infrastructure, CSIC aims to strengthen Spain’s capabilities in semiconductors and quantum technologies and to ease the transition from research to industrial development.
The initiative also forms part of the organisation’s strategy to consolidate its position in the quantum field, which includes the creation of the QuARC-CSIC Centre for Quantum Science and Technologies.
A new centre to bring together quantum talent
The Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), a body attached to the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, has announced the creation of the QuARC-CSIC Centre for Quantum Science and Technologies (Quantum Advanced Research Center). The new centre will bring together research groups from different CSIC institutes with the aim of fostering world-class research, attracting talent, opening up new lines of work and strengthening collaboration with other groups, both in Spain and abroad.
CSIC president Eloísa del Pino presented the Quantum Science and Technologies Strategy, the long-term planning document that underpins the launch of the new centre. Del Pino noted that quantum science is advancing rapidly worldwide, with strategic investments in Europe, the United States and China shaping an increasingly competitive ecosystem. For this reason, she argued that a new organisational model is needed to enable CSIC to implement a long-term strategy and strengthen Spain’s quantum ecosystem.
According to the president, QuARC-CSIC represents an opportunity to consolidate a stable, nationwide reference structure devoted exclusively to this field, at a time when the institution is preparing for what she has called the third quantum revolution, the shift from laboratory experimentation to the integration of these technologies into industry and society.
A Madrid headquarters bringing together physics, computing, mathematics, engineering and chemistry
The new centre will bring together CSIC’s existing strengths in quantum sciences, with research lines spanning physics, computing, mathematics, engineering and chemistry. It will have a physical headquarters in Madrid, located in the former facilities of the Cajal Institute, now part of the Cajal Neuroscience Centre.
The choice of this location is linked to the concentration of leading quantum groups CSIC already has in the Madrid region, 13 research groups across ten institutes, which will make it possible to bring together existing capabilities and create favourable conditions for interaction among researchers.
The centre will be further strengthened by the recruitment of new staff through selection processes already under way, in which several positions have been reserved for this speciality, and it will operate as a hub for research, training and collaboration with other centres.