Smoothing the Quantum Path: ASML and Xanadu Target Photon Loss

What happened

ASML and Xanadu have announced a collaboration to investigate whether advanced lithography processes can suppress photon loss, one of the most unforgiving engineering constraints in photonic quantum computing. The companies will study advanced lithography processes for Xanadu's photonic quantum hardware, focusing on whether tighter patterning control can suppress loss mechanisms and improve the prospects for fault-tolerant, utility-scale machines. The program specifically connects optical loss with line-edge roughness (LER): lithography defines the lateral boundaries of waveguides and other nanophotonic structures, and nanoscale deviations in real edges perturb the waveguide's refractive-index boundary, coupling guided light into radiation modes or producing back-scattering, resulting in propagation loss. ASML brings expertise in lithographic imaging, process windows, metrology and computational correction; Xanadu contributes device requirements, photonic circuit designs and quantum-level performance data. The source explicitly notes that the collaboration does not mean ASML is building a quantum computer, and the announcement does not specify a production node, tool platform or numerical loss target; it is a research effort to understand which lithography-enabled approaches can produce lower-loss photonic structures, and the immediate outcome is process knowledge, not a finished fault-tolerant machine. Success will also depend on packaging, fiber-to-chip coupling, detector efficiency and source quality, which lithography cannot solve alone.

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Source and time

Source: SemiWiki · 10/20/2026 · View original source