Hardware Team

Team Objectives and Work Description_

Qilimanjaro builds on its expertise in superconducting qubits for gate-based quantum computers to focus on timely and affordable quantum advantage, by designing next-generation analog quantum processors with high quality qubits, which do not require quantum error correction and can therefore be faster-to-market.

Simulators have advanced humanity in tremendous ways by predicting the world and thus showing us how to harness its processes to our advantage. The tiny world of atoms, molecules and light obeys very different laws, however, than the macroscopic world we see with our own eyes: in the tiny world, atoms can exist in opposite configurations at the same time (superposition), can teleport from one location to the next, or can be entangled with another atom miles away.

At the Qilimanjaro hardware team, we are building simulators, called coherent quantum annealers (CQA), harnessing this quantum world. These CQA processors consist of a network of interconnected artificial atoms, where the interactions are user defined, and where the delicate quantum information carried within the network is kept and retrieved when desired.

Each CQA processor and its network is designed to simulate and solve a specific problem. These problems can be of a variety of ranges: from biology where one can simulate how certain drugs affect our health system, through physics where one can model many body interactions all the way to financial optimization problems. At the Hardware team we engineer our CQA processors to best simulate the task at hand!

Team members_

Daniel Szombati

Senior Quantum Engineer

Daniel has obtained his PhD from the TU Delft on quantum transport in exotic low temperature semiconductor physics. He then dived into the world of superconducting qubits by taking on research position first at the University of Queensland in Brisbane and then at the École Normale Supérieure de Lyon, where he made his contribution to the field via significant scientific publications on first principle qubit physics. He is now leading the research efforts at Qilimanjaro towards a first coherent adiabatic quantum computing processor.

Ramiro Sagastizabal

Senior Quantum Engineer

Ramiro has a degree in Physics from the National University of Cordoba (Argentina), Master in Physics from the University of Aix-Marseille (France). During his PhD at TU Delft (The Netherlands) he specialized in design, fabrication and control of superconducting qubits, where this quarter he will read his thesis entitled “Experimental Quantum Simulations with Noisy Intermmediate-Scale Quantum Processors”.

David Eslava

Quantum Engineer

David is a second year PhD student at the UAB Barcelona and obtained a fellowship from AGAUR-Agency for Management of University and Research Grants, as an Industrial PhD working in the hardware team of Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech. His Phd thesis is entitled: “Microwave technology for quantum processors”.

David’s PhD is looking at novel ways to enhance the readout of qubits. David is working on using new filters to improve coherence times and optimizing elements of the readout chain to improve the signal to noise ratio. These improvements will allow more complex problems to be solved using a quantum processor.

Yifei Chen

Quantum Engineer

Yifei just started the second year as a PhD student at the UAB Barcelona and obtained a fellowship from AGAUR-Agency for Management of University and Research Grants, as an Industrial PhD working in the hardware team of Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech.

Yifei ́s PhD thesis is entitled “Digital and Analog Quantum Computers”. She is aiming to build a digital quantum computer based on quantum gates with trasmons. At the same time, Yifei is exploring novel couplers for quantum annealers to improve the coherence between qubits.

Paul Jamet

Quantum Engineer

Paul has recently graduated from the Nanotechnology Master program at Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden) and has a Bachelor degree in Engineering Physics from UPC Barcelona. Paul’s Master thesis was focused on Quantum Thermodynamics. He designed, characterised and measured a three qubit device implementing autonomous qubit reset with thermal fields.
He joined Qilimanjaro Quantum Tech in September 2022 to strengthen the Hardware team in their mission to build the first Coherent Quantum Annealer.
In his spare time Paul enjoys sport climbing, windsurfing and watching motorsports.

María Benito

Quantum Engineer

Maria Benito, Master’s degree (2020) in Nanophysics and Advanced Materials at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, after completing a Bachelor’s degree (2019) in the same institution. She was afterwards awarded an early researcher grant at IMDEA Materiales, to develop fire-retardant electrolytes for novel battery applications. In 2020-2022, she worked in the Quantronics group (CEA Saclay) to study Andreev Bound States in Josephson Weak Links using microwave spectroscopy. Her growing interest towards technological applications of superconducting circuits lead her to joining Qilimajaro QT, were she focus in the design, simulation and fabrication of the superconducting qubit chips.

When she is not in the cleanroom or performing quantum measurements, she enjoys running, climbing, yoga, and reading outdoors.

Fabio Henriques

Quantum Engineer

Fabio has a Masters in Physics Engineering from the University of Coimbra (Portugal). Before joining Qilimanjaro, he worked on improving coherence of superconducting circuits in Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Germany), on quantum simulation in the University of Technology Sydney (Australia) and on trapped Ion quantum computers for eleQtron GmbH. His interests span the whole of quantum technologies with a special focus for quantum computing with superconducting qubits.

When not in the lab you will probably find him lost somewhere in nature, either going up a cliff or down a canyon. You can also sometimes hear him practicing bossa nova on the guitar.

Catalin Giurgea

Quantum Engineer

Catalin has recently graduated form the Master in Quantum Science and Technology at University of Barcelona (UB), previously having accomplished a degree in Physics at the University of Valencia (UV).

He has been attracted to quantum physics ever since he saw it for the first time and thus he worked on his thesis project at ICN2, focusing on optically induced spin transport in two-dimensional heterostructures. He is joining the Hardware team as an intern to reinforce the fabrication branch.

Fabian Zwiehoff

Quantum Engineer

Fabian is a third year PhD student in the Quantum Computing Technology group at IFAE where he works on error suppression in quantum annealing. He holds a B.Sc. in Physics from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and a M.Sc. in Applied Physics from Technische Universität (TU) Berlin. Previously, he worked on research projects related to quantum communications both at ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona and the Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute in Berlin.

David López

Quantum Engineer

David López-Núñez is a PhD student in the QCT group of Pol Forn. He studied a Degree in Physics and a Master’s Degree in Advanced Physics at the University of Barcelona. His PhD thesis, entitled “Coherent quantum annealing with superconducting qubits”, is focused on the design, fabrication, and characterization of multi-qubit annealing processors. He is also working on basic superconductivity studies.

He has joined Qilimanjaro as a part-time worker and his work is mainly devoted to developing the code for the control instrumentation and joining the efforts on the measurement of quantum processors.