The Chinese scientific research team has successfully developed a "quantum chip refrigerator", which has been put into use.

CTOnews.com, March 15 (Xinhua)-- China News Service has learned from the Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center that China's first high vacuum storage box for quantum chips has been successfully developed and put into use, and researchers vividly call it the "quantum chip refrigerator."

According to Jia Zhilong, deputy director of Anhui Quantum Computing Engineering Research Center, the quantum chip high vacuum storage box has three storage cavities, each of which can be operated separately. In addition, it is also equipped with an intelligent monitoring system, which can monitor the vacuum in real time and provide a stable high vacuum environment for the chip storage process; the R & D staff have also developed a human-computer interaction interface to enable the equipment to operate automatically.

Jia Zhilong pointed out that the superconducting materials in quantum chips are very sensitive to the environment, and if the environment is not up to standard in the process of manufacture and storage, they will react with oxygen and water molecules in the air and absorb various impurities. In this way, the key components of the quantum chip, such as Josephson junction and superconducting capacitor, will age, resulting in poor frequency consistency of qubits, shortening the coherence time of the quantum chip, and ultimately affecting the performance of the quantum chip. Just as food will oxidize and deteriorate after exposure to air, if the quantum chip is not properly preserved, it will fail because it is "not fresh".