50 chips the size of a fingernail each contain 10,000 photonic circuits on a silicon wafer the size of a coaster. This feat by NIST resolves the main bottleneck that confined quantum computers and atomic clocks to laboratories: high-quality lasers exist only in a few wavelengths, while emerging quantum technologies require laser light in many other colors.
Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology and their collaborators have developed a method for manufacturing integrated circuits for light by depositing complex patterns of specialized materials on silicon wafers. These NIST chips could allow emerging technologies like quantum computers and optical atomic clocks to escape the laboratory and begin to have an impact on biomedicine, navigation, and communications.
The Essentials
- 50 chips the size of a fingernail containing 10,000 photonic circuits each fit on a wafer the size of a coaster
- Lasers that produce the colors needed for quantum technologies are bulky, expensive, and energy-intensive, confining these technologies to a few specialized laboratories
- The market for integrated photonic circuits is expected to grow from $20.85 billion in 2026 to $86.44 billion in 2034, with an annual growth rate of 20.8%
- 2026 saw the commercialization of 1.6 terabit-per-second optical transceivers, with 3.2T versions expected by the end of the decade
One Chip Replaces a Table-Sized Installation
Photons travel much faster than electrons through circuits. Laser light is essential for controlling powerful emerging quantum technologies such as optical atomic clocks and quantum computers. But the largest and most sensitive components of these quantum systems are the optics, which include multiple lasers and vibration-isolated, temperature-controlled vacuum chambers containing ultra-stable optical cavities. These cavities stabilize the lasers to extreme precision to control trapped ions.
Optical fibers act as pipes for light, allowing light generated on these chips to be collected and routed off the chip for use in experiments and applications. Scientists at NIST and their collaborators have developed a way to manufacture integrated circuits for light. The new NIST photonic chip is a multilayer device that combines silicon, silicon dioxide, lithium niobate, and tantalum pentoxide to create a versatile platform for manipulating light.
This miniaturization is part of a broader dynamic. Scientists have demonstrated the key stabilized laser and ion trap components necessary to drastically reduce the size of quantum computers, an accomplishment aligned with the miniaturization of microprocessors integrated in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Current cutting-edge technology for quantum computing is too bulky and complex to scale and too sensitive and cumbersome to be portable.
Twelve Lasers to Control a Single Qubit
The challenge of quantum miniaturization reveals the scope of the laser problem. A quantum computer using neutral cesium atoms requires 12 different lasers to produce six different colors. These days, a qubit needs up to a dozen lasers with different wavelengths that are not among the standard classical wavelengths. These lasers must also meet the highest requirements in terms of stability and linewidth.
Trapped ion systems require laser beams to control each ion or qubit, where the number of laser beams required scales with the number of ions in the quantum computer. While this has worked extremely well for quantum computers with tens of qubits, scaling this approach to millions of qubits—requiring millions of laser beams interacting only with their target qubit—is an enormous challenge.
There are more than 17 atomic species being explored for various quantum applications, corresponding to more than 100 different laser wavelengths. To meet these requirements, a wide variety of laser gain media and laser architectures are currently used. The QIST industry is in its early stages of development, and a mature laser supply chain to meet the industry’s special requirements does not exist. QIST system developers must rely either on small-volume, high-cost development in small and medium-sized enterprises or on commercially available lasers developed for other applications.
Atomic Clocks Remain Confined to Metrology Laboratories
Many of the most precise optical clocks are bulky and available only in large metrology laboratories. They are therefore not easily usable for factories with limited space or other industrial environments that could use an atomic clock for GPS precision.
The stakes are considerable. In July 2025, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in the United States reported a record optical atomic clock based on a trapped aluminum ion. This “quantum logic” clock achieves a systematic uncertainty corresponding to approximately 19 decimal places of precision, representing a 41% improvement over the previous record.
But these performances remain inaccessible outside laboratories. These optical atomic clocks use advanced quantum technology and currently exist mainly as enormous complex installations in physics laboratories. The European Union measures the state of development of technological applications in terms of technology readiness level, or TRL. TRL-1 means that basic principles have been observed, while the highest level, TRL-9, means that products are built and operating in a real-world environment.
The iqClock consortium, predecessor of AQuRA, succeeded in bringing optical atomic clocks to TRL-5, where the technology still functions primarily in a controlled laboratory environment. The practical objective is to build a clock that would only be off by about five seconds over the entire age of the universe—but in such a way that you could take this clock on a bumpy truck ride, after which it would still work perfectly.
An $86 Billion Market Expected in 2034
Photonic miniaturization is targeting an exploding market. The global market for integrated photonic circuits is expected to grow from $20.85 billion in 2026 to $86.44 billion in 2034, displaying a CAGR of 20.80%. According to IDTechEx, the market for integrated photonic circuits and silicon photonics for optical transceivers in datacom and quantum technologies will reach $50 billion by 2036, with a robust compound annual growth rate of 21.9%. The vast majority of market value will come from PIC-based optical transceivers to meet growing demands for high-speed data processing and communication.
Growth in the integrated photonic circuits market is expected to be driven by the increasing need for faster data transmission rates, particularly in telecommunications and data centers. The expansion of 5G networks and the upcoming transition to 6G require the incorporation of photonics to handle unprecedented volumes of data and communication speeds.
Artificial intelligence amplifies this demand. According to IDTechEx research, Nvidia’s latest H200 server units require approximately 2.5 800G transceivers per GPU. The largest driver of PIC transceiver development is AI, as high-performance AI accelerators will require higher-performing transceivers, with 3.2Tbps transceivers expected by 2026.
Toward Quantum Computers the Size of a Deck of Cards
NIST’s breakthrough is part of a global technological race toward quantum miniaturization. In a new paper published in Nature, researchers demonstrate the key stabilized laser components necessary for an integrated-on-chip quantum computing system with the potential to reduce portions of quantum computing hardware from room-sized to the size of a deck of cards. This is a critical first step toward scalability of quantum computing and an opportunity to make optical clocks portable.
If you want scalability or portability with quantum technology, you need all the laser systems to be on chip as well. We could have millions of qubits on one chip in a way that is not possible if you needed rooms full of lasers and optics.
This vision is becoming reality. The laser employed by Blumenthal’s group to accomplish this is a visible Brillouin laser that has such low frequency noise that it enables superior quantum operations compared to traditional lasers. Also important, this chip-scale Brillouin laser is anchored to a second chip that contains an integrated coil resonator that keeps the laser light in range.
Full integration is approaching. The next objective is full integration, combining the ion trap chip, laser chip, optical cavity chip, and other photonics on a single chip. This approach even surpasses existing quantum technologies since this approach creates a link that is as robust as the optical fiber itself. It allows photonic integrated circuits to go places where they simply could not go before.
NIST’s photonic circuits are transforming a technological landscape where synthetic DNA makes Vernam encryption unbreakable and where quantum computing threatens current cryptographies. We are learning to manufacture complex circuits with many functions, spanning many domains of application. The promise holds in a few words: replace table-sized installations with fingernail-sized chips, thereby democratizing access to the most advanced quantum technologies.
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