IBM introduced the super-refrigerator Goldeneye. It will be a proof of concept for a dissolution refrigerator capable of cooling "future generations of quantum computers."
At the same time, the refrigerator is not yet designed for use with IBM quantum processors.
Goldeneye can cool three times the volume of household refrigerators (1.7 versus 0.4-0.7) to the temperature of outer space. For example, IBM cooled the Goldeneye to a working temperature of -273.1°C (about 25 mK) and placed a quantum processor in it.
Goldeneye requires 10 times less space than today's large scale dilution refrigerators. At the same time, an equivalent amount of quantum equipment can be placed there.
Dilution refrigerators are experimental cryogenic devices that cool a volume of space to milli-Kelvin (mK) mode using a mixture of two helium isotopes called helium-3 (He-3) and helium-4 (He-4). Solution coolers perform this cooling using a series of stages to remove heat from the helium isotope mixture and then use vacuum pumps to circulate and dilute the He-3 into the He-3/He-4 mixture until the target temperature is reached. Until recently, all dilution refrigerators were "wet" systems, requiring liquid nitrogen and other cryogenic liquids to start cooling. Modern refrigerators are more often "dry" and use a mechanical component called a cryocooler that provides initial temperatures of 50 K and 4 K to pre-cool the helium mixture.
The Goldeneye project features a completely new design of the frame and cryostat - the main barrel-shaped component responsible for cooling - to maximize the experimental volume while reducing noise and achieving temperatures required to cool the experimental quantum equipment. The design is modular, making prototyping much easier. The cryostat has a clamshell design that allows the outer vacuum chamber to open sideways and eliminates the need to remove the entire outer shell to access the equipment inside. The fully automated Goldeneye system includes a custom-designed jib crane that in the future will allow even one person to remotely control a refrigerator using an open source visualization platform.
Inside the cryostat, it is possible to install a set of 10 internal plates for fastening components in its upper and lower half: five “regular” blocks on top and five inverted ones on the bottom. It can also accommodate up to six individual refrigerators, delivering around ~10mW at 100mK cooling power and over 24W of cooling power at 4K. damping methods.
A qubit chip was placed inside the Goldeneye. The researchers were able to reproduce a coherence time of about 450 microseconds, similar to the coherence time measured in other commercial dilution refrigeration systems. At the same time, the performance of the qubit did not decrease.
Goldeneye will be transported to the IBM Quantum Computing Center. There, it will continue to be tested to determine future cooling needs for quantum data centers. The refrigerator is planned to be used to improve IBM's quantum processors after 2025. In particular, its capabilities will be used to develop the Bluefors Kide cryogenic platform that works with IBM Quantum. In 2023, the company will start deploying IBM Quantum System Two on Bluefors Kide.
In November 2021, IBM announced that it had succeeded in building a 127-qubit Eagle quantum processor. The company plans to release the Osprey processor with 433 qubits, and in 2023 the Condor with 1,121 qubits.
bbabo.Net