Kitchener’s Angstrom Engineering is making a quantum leap with its next-generation technology
Friday, January 17, 2020
- Photo credits: Brent Davis , Waterloo Region Record
- Courtesy of Angstrom Engineering
- Courtesy of Angstrom Engineering
Some of the world’s top quantum researchers are using equipment developed in Kitchener as they pursue the next-generation technology.
Angstrom Engineering specializes in systems that deposit thin films of various materials onto another material known as a substrate. The equipment can be used in the development of a range of products, from solar cells and solid-state batteries, to display technologies such as micro-LED and OLED.
In the quantum field, the Angstrom systems are used to produce microscopic, thin-film devices called Josephson junctions, which consist of two superconductors separated by a nonsuperconducting layer. They’re an integral part of the superconducting quantum circuits that are seen as a forerunner among the different ways a quantum computer may be built.
If you this all seems entirely too complex, you’re not alone. Even the people who work within the quantum realm admit it can be a baffling place. “We don’t know the whole story with quantum,” said Chris Haapamaki, a project manager at Angstrom. “It goes against what we were taught classically.”
As the prospects for quantum technologies emerged in recent years — among them, the promise of far-faster computers that can solve problems traditional computers never could — Angstrom recognized that deposition systems it was producing for other fields could prove valuable in the quantum world.
“We kind of got wind that there was growing demand for it in about 2016,” said marketing manager Andrew Goodwin. “We’ve been able to take it to the wider market, and we’ve had good success across the board.”
Researchers at schools including the University of Waterloo, the University of Southern California, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem are among those using Angstrom systems.
Angstrom is part of the Quantum Alliance, launched in December by a UW-led research initiative called Transformative Quantum Technologies. The program aims to bring together researchers and industry partners.
The firm’s quantum systems have also been acquired by commercial clients; Angstrom prefers to call its customers partners, a nod to the extent to which the systems are customized. “We’re working together with the customer to the point it’s a collaboration,” Goodwin said. “We don’t have a catalogue,” added Haapamaki.
Angstrom was founded in 1992 by Andrew Bass, who retired in 2012. It’s now co-owned by Andrew Campbell and Dave Pitts, and is based out of a Trillium Drive facility that employs about 75 people.
This story by Brent Davis first appeared in the Waterloo Region Record on January 17, 2020.