On-chip waste recovery in quantum and nanoscale devices guided by novel performance quantifiers

Quantum and nanoscale technologies promise to revolutionise computing, sensing, information and communication applications. However, they are missing a dedicated effort towards energy sustainability exploiting their characteristic properties.

The theoretical project NanoRecycle addresses this important outstanding problem, by developing schemes for on-chip recovery of waste that typical device operations leave behind: in classical devices, this waste is often dissipated heat, but waste in nanoscale and quantum devices has characteristic nonthermal, fluctuating, and quantum properties.

The scope of NanoRecycle is to develop processes converting this waste to electrical power or other resources that are useful for further on-chip tasks.

The analysis will be based on sufficiently generic setups to capture the characteristic waste properties, that are at the same time typical elements of current quantum and nanotechnologies and are concretely connected to feasible, state-of-the-art experiments.

This involves multi-terminal electronic conductors, but also hybrid devices coupling to microwave resonators.To guide the design, analysis, and optimisation of on-chip waste-recovery, my team and I will first capture and quantify the characteristic properties of the various types of waste and then put in place comprehensive performance quantifiers for the efficiency of dedicated conversion processes.

An important performance goal of such a conversion in small-scale devices, which we will also account for in our performance analysis, is the output power precision (namely the suppression of power fluctuations), crucial for further on-chip use.

While the power obtained from this waste recovery is expected to be small, its potential for contributing to energy-sustainable processes lies in the availability on-chip for further use, thereby circumventing high-loss attenuation procedures, which occur when bringing large classical fields down to the chip.