Solid state electronic devices have transformed our lives over the past fifty years: the development of devices like the transistor, integrated circuits and magnetic hard disks have given us a revolution in computing power, portable electronics and the ability to store and handle vast amounts of data. Quantum technologies aim to harness the power of quantum physics to deliver a further revolution in areas such as computing, sensing and communication. The UK is currently making a major investment in the exploitation of quantum science research to deliver a range of quantum technologies - so far this investment has focused on platforms of photonics, cold atoms and trapped ions. The aim of our proposal, Quantum Engineering of Solid-State Technologies, or QUES2T, is to address the capability gap in in quantum solid-state technologies and ensure the UK is in a strong competitive position in some of the most high-impact and scalable quantum technologies. In QUES2T we focus on three solid-state platforms which are well-poised to make significant commercial impact: i) silicon nano-devices, ii) superconducting circuits and iii) diamond-based devices. Each of these materials have demonstrated outstanding properties: silicon can store quantum information for a record-breaking 3 hours, superconducting circuits have been used to make the most complex quantum devices to date, while diamond based magnetometer have a sensitivity to image individual proton spins in a second. We will exploit these properties to develop practical quantum technologies. Importantly, we do not consider these platforms in isolation. A key strength and unique feature of QUES2T is that it not only provides essential infrastructure in each of these three areas but that it brings together a team of people with expertise across these different platforms. This will allow exchange of cross-fertilisation of different disciplines through transfer of expertise and the accelerated development of hybrid technologies that combine the best properties of different materials, to make new detectors, memories, and processors. QUES2T will allow UK researchers and their collaborators to exploit the advantages of developing new quantum devices based on solid state technologies, including easier integration with existing conventional technologies (such as CMOS processors) and reduced timescales to market and manufacturing. The capital infrastructure of QUES2T will establish world-class fabrication capabilities to manufacture high-quality quantum device prototypes out of a range of materials. It will also enable the creation of low-temperature technology test-beds to test the prototypes and develop technology demonstrators. These test-beds will combine a number of essential features, enabling devices to be addressed optically using lasers, with microwave pulses, under low-noise electrical measurements, and all at a hundredth of a degree kelvin. Such systems will be unique UK. To deliver our vision, we have established strong links with academic and industrial partners to exchange the latest technology, expertise and materials. Examples are ultra low-phase noise signal generators with applications in fast high-fidelity qubit control or isotopically pure materials for quantum prototypes in Si and diamond. Industry users working on quantum technologies will be actively encouraged to access the QUES2T infrastructure, such as a state-of-the-art 100 keV electron beam writer to make devices with 10nm features. Many industry partners will also be end users of the technologies that will be developed through QUES2T. Early technologies include scanning probe devices enabling magnetic resonance imaging at the single molecule level and quantum current standards counting electrons one-by-one. On a longer timescale, a fault-tolerant and scalable Si or superconducting based quantum processor, would be form the basis of a new and disruptive industry in computing.

The Cranfield IMRC vision is to grow the existing world class research activity through the development and interaction between:Manufacturing Technologies and Product/Service Systems that move UK manufacturing up the value chain to provide high added value manufacturing business opportunities.This research vision builds on the existing strengths and expertise at Cranfield and is complementary to the activities at other IMRCs. It represents a unique combination of manufacturing research skills and resource that will address key aspects of the UK's future manufacturing needs. The research is multi-disciplinary and cross-sectoral and is designed to promote knowledge transfer between sectors. To realise this vision the Cranfield IMRC has two interdependent strategic aims which will be pursued simultaneously:1.To produce world/beating process and product technologies in the areas of precision engineering and materials processing.2.To enable the creation and exploitation of these technologies within the context of service/based competitive strategies.

Quantum technologies promise a transformation of measurement, communication and computation by using ideas originating from quantum physics. The UK was the birthplace of many of the seminal ideas and techniques in this area; the technologies are now ready to translate from the laboratory into industrial applications. Since international companies are already moving in this area, and technology transfer in the UK is being accelerated through a substantial national research and development programme, there is a critical need for highly-skilled researchers who can work with the new technologies at the level of whole systems to provide products that solve real-world problems. Our proposal is driven by the need to train this new generation of leaders. They will need to be equipped to function in the complex research and engineering landscape where quantum hardware (with the attendant challenges in cryptography, complexity and information theory, devices, materials, software and hardware engineering) meets real devices, real applications and real customers. We propose to train an additional cohort of leaders to meet these challenges within the highly interdisciplinary research environment provided by UCL, exploiting the existing training programmes of two highly successful EPSRC Centres for Doctoral Training, in Delivering Quantum Technologies and Integrated Photonic and Electronic Systems, along with the UCL Centre for Systems Engineering and their commercial and governmental laboratory partners. We will provide a new doctoral training route for outstanding engineers. In their first year the students will obtain a background in devices, information and computational sciences through three concentrated modules organized around current engineering challenges. They will complete a team project and a longer individual research project, preparing them for their choice of main research doctoral topic at the end of the year. They will then move into doctoral research either within UCL or in the wider national Quantum Technologies Programme. Cross-cohort training in communication skills, technology transfer, enterprise, teamwork and career planning will continue throughout the four years. Peer to peer learning will be continually facilitated not only by organized cross-cohort activities, but also by the day to day social interaction. Following their co-location at UCL during training we expect the Skills Hub cohort to form a national network to advance the application of quantum technologies. We will also provide opportunities for the best graduates to develop their ideas beyond the PhD stage and to accelerate new concepts towards applications, while at the same time offering continuing training to those already working in industries ripe for applying quantum technologies.

We will establish the primary global manufacturing research hub for Compound Semiconductors that brings together Academic and Industrial researchers. This will capitalize on existing academic expertise in Cardiff, Manchester, Sheffield and UCL and the UK indigenous corporate strength in the key advanced materials technology of Compound Semiconductors. Cardiff, the Compound Semiconductor Centre and the other spoke universities will provide > £100M of additive capital leverage to the Hub, providing European leading facilities for large scale compound semiconductor epitaxial growth, device fabrication and characterisation enabling the most effective translation of research to manufacturing. The hub will operate at the necessary scale and with the necessary reach to change the approach of the UK compound semiconductor research community to one focused on starting from research solutions that can be manufactured. It will do this by providing the necessary tools and expertise and will become the missing exploitation link for the UK compound semiconductor research community. It will be a magnet and the driver for high technology industry and will act as the focal point for Europe's 5th Semiconductor Cluster and the 1st dedicated to compound semiconductors. Partners will include local and UK companies and global organisations. The importance of compound semiconductor technology cannot be overstated. It has underpinned the internet and enabled megatrends such as Smart Phones and Tablets, satellite communications / GPS, Direct Broadcast TV, energy efficient LED lighting, efficient solar power generation, high capacity communication networks, data storage, ground breaking healthcare and biotechnology. Silicon has supported the information society in the 20th century and dominates memory and processor function, but is reaching fundamental limits. Whilst the combination of Silicon and compound semiconductors will produce a second revolution in the information age, they are very different materials with, for example, different fundamental lattice constants and different thermal properties and have different device fabrication requirements. We propose research into large scale Compound Semiconductor manufacturing and in manufacturing integrated Compound Semiconductors on Silicon. The scale of the hub means we can bring together three world leading researchers in the growth of compound semiconductors on Silicon. Each has individually invented different solutions to tackle the silicon / compound semiconductor interface - together they will invent the universal solution. We will solve the scientific challenges in wafer size scale-up, process statistical control and integrated epitaxial growth and processing to facilitate new devices and integrated systems and open up completely new areas of research, only possible with reliable and reproducible fabrication, such as electronically controlled Qubits. We will facilitate the improved communication infrastructure necessary for the connected world and the integrated systems of the Internet of Things. We will produce large area integrated sensor arrays for, e.g. in-process Non-Destructive Testing, further benefiting manufacturing but also improving our safety and security. The key outcomes will be to 1) To radically boost the uptake and application of Compound Semiconductor technology by applying the manufacturing approaches of Silicon to Compound Semiconductors, 2) To exploit the highly advantageous electronic, magnetic, optical and power handling properties of Compound Semiconductors while utilising the cost and scaling advantage of silicon technology where best suited and 3) To generate novel integrated functionality such as sensing, data processing and communication.

This Hub accelerates progress towards a new "quantum era" by engineering small, high precision quantum systems, and linking them into a network to create the world's first truly scalable quantum computing engine. This new computing platform will harness quantum effects to achieve tasks that are currently impossible. The Hub is an Oxford-led alliance of nine universities with complementary expertise in quantum technologies including Bath, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Leeds, Strathclyde, Southampton, Sussex and Warwick. We have assembled a network of more than 25 companies (Lockheed-Martin, Raytheon BBN, Google, AMEX), government labs (NPL, DSTL, NIST) and SMEs (PureLiFi, Rohde & Schwarz, Aspen) who are investing resources and manpower. Our ambitious flagship goal is the Q20:20 engine - a network of twenty optically-linked ion-trap processors each containing twenty quantum bits (qubits). This 400 qubit machine will be vastly more powerful than anything that has been achieved to date, but recent progress on three fronts makes it a feasible goal. First, Oxford researchers recently discovered a way to build a quantum computer from precisely-controlled qubits linked with low precision by photons (particles of light). Second, Oxford's ion-trap researchers recently achieved a new world record for precision qubit control with 99.9999% accuracy. Third, we recently showed how to control photonic interference inside small silica chips. We now have an exciting opportunity to combine these advances to create a light-matter hybrid network computer that gets the 'best of both worlds' and overcomes long-standing impracticalities like the ever increasing complexity of matter-only systems, or the immense resource requirements of purely photonic approaches. Engineers and scientists with the hub will work with other hubs and partners from across the globe to achieve this. At present proof-of-principle experiments exist in the lab, and the 'grand challenge' is to develop compact manufacturable devices and components to build the Q20:20 engine (and to make it easy to build more). We have already identified more than 20 spin-offs from this work, ranging from hacker-proof communication systems and ultra-sensitive medical and military sensors to higher resolution imaging systems. Quantum ICT will bring great economic benefits and offer technical solutions to as yet unsolveable problems. Just as today's computers allow jet designers to test the aerodynamics of planes before they are built, a quantum computer will model the properties of materials before they've been made, or design a vital drug without the trial and error process. This is called digital quantum simulation. In fact many problems that are difficult using conventional computing can be enhanced with a 'quantum co-processor'. This is a hugely desirable capability, important across multiple areas of science and technology, so much so that even the prospect of limited quantum capabilities (e.g. D-Wave's device) has raised great excitement. The Q20:20 will be an early form of a verifiable quantum computer, the uncompromised universal machine that can ultimately perform any algorithm and scale to any size; the markets and impacts will be correspondingly far greater. In addition to computing there will be uses in secure communications, so that a 'trusted' internet becomes feasible, in sensing - so that we can measure to new levels of precision, and in new components - for instance new detectors that allow us to collect single photons. The hub will ultimately become a focus for an emerging quantum ICT industry, with trained scientists and engineers available to address the problems in industry and the wider world where quantum techniques will be bringing benefits. It will help form new companies, new markets, and grow the UK's knowledge economy.