Silicon crystals with purity surpassing diamonds have finally achieved complete domestic supply. For a long time, silicon-28 has been the core raw material for silicon-based quantum chips, with extremely high technological barriers to preparation. Obtaining high abundance products is as difficult as sorting millet from a large amount of yellow rice, and subtle isotopic differences test every production process. Previously, this type of high-end material relied on external supply for a long time, which became a major obstacle to the development of silicon-based quantum computing in China. With the completion of technological breakthroughs and mass production by China National Nuclear Corporation, this dilemma has been completely broken, and the development of cutting-edge technology has received new support.

Material value

Silicon-28 is known as the purest silicon in the world and is an essential material for building silicon-based quantum chips, which are also the mainstream direction for promoting the large-scale application of quantum computing. In addition to serving quantum computing, stable isotopes have a wide range of applications, playing an irreplaceable role in fields such as nuclear medicine imaging, precision radiotherapy, nuclear security traceability, environmental tracking, and basic physics research. They are also important foundational materials for safeguarding national security and supporting cutting-edge scientific and technological progress.

technical breakthrough

To produce silicon-28 with an abundance exceeding 99.99%, the entire process is full of challenges. From raw material purification to separation and enrichment, the entire process not only needs to accurately distinguish small isotopic differences, but also efficiently complete particle aggregation, constantly breaking through the limits of physical laws and engineering manufacturing. The mass production results of this project were jointly developed and created by relevant units under the China National Nuclear Corporation. All key indicators of the product have reached the international advanced level, and the core technology is completely in our own hands.Keywords: Silicon 28, mass-produced quantum chip, core material

Development Assistance

This dual breakthrough in technology and mass production has steadily propelled China's stable isotope industry towards independent and controllable direction. The independent supply of high-end silicon materials not only solves the problem of the lack of core raw materials for silicon-based quantum computing, clears the obstacles for large-scale bit manipulation, but also effectively drives the upgrading of multiple cutting-edge industries such as advanced process semiconductors, high-end navigation, and measurement benchmarks, laying a solid material foundation for the overall development of domestic high-tech.Editor / Li Xiaohua