ERC Advanced Grant for KIT Scientist from the Research Field Information
The Research Field Information congratulates the Karlsruhe researcher, Prof. Dr. Alexey Ustinov, on being awarded the prestigious ERC Advanced Grant.
The European Research Council (ERC) is awarding physicist Alexey Ustinov an Advanced Grant in the 2021 award round. For his research project in the field of quantum physics, the renowned scientist will receive funding of 2.7 million euros over the next five years. (Source: Karlsruhe Institute of Technology – Press Releases)
“Alexey Ustinov is breaking new ground with his interdisciplinary research project, which may lead to groundbreaking findings in science. I am very pleased that the European Research Council supports his excellent work with the highly prestigious Advanced Grant,” says Professor Oliver Kraft, Vice President for Research at KIT. “His project in physics is as ambitious as it is forward-looking, offering great potential to advance basic research for the digital transformation of our society.”
Quantum bits with high clock
Alexey Ustinov, Professor of Solid State Physics at the KIT Institute of Physics, has dedicated himself to the development of a new generation of superconducting quantum bits. “Qubits” form the elementary computing units for operating a quantum computer. In the Milli-Q project (Millimetre-Wave Superconducting Quantum Circuits), these qubits are to be further developed so that they operate more stably and energy-efficiently in the future. To take quantum computing to a new level, the operating frequency of the qubits will be increased from today’s average of ten gigahertz to one hundred gigahertz. “This is a big step that we hope will bring many technological benefits,” says Ustinov, who has been researching quantum circuits for more than two decades. Among other things, the new quantum processors should be able to operate at significantly higher temperatures than before, thus reducing the high infrastructure and energy costs that previously had to be spent on cooling. The primary goal is to get an overall picture of the physical properties of quantum circuits at temperatures around one Kelvin. “If our research approach is successful, we will have reached another important milestone on the way to a superconducting quantum computer for processing exponentially growing amounts of data,” Ustinov emphasizes.
ERC Advanced Grants 2021
With the ERC Advanced Grants, the European Research Council (ERC) supports established top scientists with an outstanding scientific performance who want to open up new research areas. The scientific work from the last ten years prior to the application is decisive for the evaluation. 1735 researchers participated in the 2021 call. The ERC awarded Advanced Grants for a total of 253 projects in 21 countries with a total funding volume of more than 624 million euros, 61 of which were at German universities and research institutions. The approval rate is 14.6 percent.
Further Information: https://erc.europa.eu/news/erc-2021-advanced-grants-results
The original press release can be found at:
Zwei ERC Advanced Grants für Wissenschaftler des KIT (only in german)
Localization in the Helmholtz Research Field Information:
Helmholtz Research Field Information, Program 2: Natural, Artificial and Cognitive Information Processing, Topic 2: Quantum Computing
Contact:
Prof. Dr. Alexey Ustinov
Head of the Research Group Ustinov at the Physikalisches Institut (PHI)
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Phone: +49 721 608 43455
E-Mail: alexey.ustinov@kit.edu
Contact for this press release:
Dr. Joachim Hoffmann
Press officer
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Phone: +49 721 608-41151
E-Mail: Joachim.hoffmann@kit.edu
