TU Delft has appointed Leo DiCarlo and Gary Steele as Antoni van Leeuwenhoek (AvL) professors at the Faculty of Applied Sciences. The AvL-chairs are intended for the promotion of young outstanding researchers so that they can optimally develop their careers. Last June, Sander Otte also received this honor. Casimir congratulates QN with these three new full professors!

Gary Steele
Gary Steele’s research focuses on quantum circuits and mechanics: building circuits that behave in a quantum way and using them to develop quantum applications of mechanical devices. He has also begun combining his quantum circuits with new materials, and using circuits to simulate problems in quantum physics. In 2017, Steele and his colleagues published an article on a promising new design for a superconducting transmon qubit. This had come about as a result of fundamental research to understand light-matter interaction at extreme limits, intended to explore the boundaries of quantum theory. It is Steele’s ambition for the coming years to build a quantum superposition of a massive object: a ‘coffee cup’ in a quantum superposition of being two places at the same time.

Leo DiCarlo
Leo DiCarlo's research focuses on superconducting circuits for quantum computation. It is his ambition to realize the first scalable prototype of a quantum computer, with integrated hardware, software and control electronics. This is only possible by combining traditional solid state physics with electrical engineering. Scalability is a challenge in quantum computing. Millions of qubits are required to perform quantum algorithms, as well as to apply the necessary error correction. The control of large numbers of qubits has been very complex up to now, with control systems becoming larger as the number of qubits increased. In 2017 DiCarlo contributed to an important breakthrough in this area: a concept that allows an unlimited number of qubits to be controlled with one set of hardware.