Summary

• Vexlum’s EU-backed SEMIQLEAP programme has industrialised manufacturing processes for semiconductor lasers used in quantum systems and optical atomic clocks.
• The project introduced automation into wafer production and chip characterisation while developing the company’s compact laser platform towards higher production readiness.
• The work exposes a wider quantum industry constraint as specialised components must become repeatable and manufacturable before complete systems can scale commercially.

Quantum computing’s manufacturing problem reaches well beyond processors and qubits, because the lasers used to manipulate atoms and ions also have to move from specialist laboratory equipment towards repeatable industrial production. A European project led by Finnish manufacturer Vexlum has spent two years working on that transition.

The European Commission’s CORDIS service published final results on 2 October from SEMIQLEAP, an EU-backed programme coordinated by Vexlum. The project focused on manufacturing the semiconductor gain chips and laser systems used in quantum computers, optical atomic clocks, and other precision applications.

Its work covered the chain from semiconductor wafers through gain-chip characterisation to finished laser systems, with automation introduced into wafer production and testing while development pushed Vexlum’s compact VXL platform towards higher manufacturing readiness.

Laboratory hardware can tolerate components assembled and adjusted in small quantities by expert engineers, but commercial systems require the same performance to be reproduced across larger production runs. Predictable quality, known lifetimes, serviceable hardware, and manufacturing processes that do not depend indefinitely on the people who created the first device all become part of the product.

The bottleneck starts below the quantum processor

Several quantum computing architectures rely on extremely precise laser light to control the physical states on which computation depends, with neutral atom and trapped ion systems requiring specific wavelengths, low noise, stable output, and tightly controlled optical performance.

As those machines grow, demand rises for more laser channels and for components that behave consistently across larger systems. Improving the processor architecture achieves little commercially if every surrounding laser remains expensive to assemble, difficult to reproduce, or dependent on bespoke laboratory tuning.

SEMIQLEAP concentrated on three connected manufacturing problems by scaling semiconductor gain-chip fabrication, automating characterisation and benchmarking, and integrating the resulting components into compact laser systems suitable for larger production runs.

CORDIS reports that gain-chip fabrication progressed towards Technology Readiness Level 8, while automation was introduced into wafer production and chip characterisation. Earlier project work also demonstrated output at the 10W level across parts of the 700–800nm wavelength range relevant to some trapped ion and neutral atom applications.

Once production volumes increase, automated characterisation becomes as important as optical performance because an industrial process cannot depend on engineers manually investigating every individual component. Repeatable testing has to identify variation early and determine whether parts meet specification before more manufacturing cost is added.

Semiconductor fabrication offers another route towards scale because manufacturing processes can be standardised more readily than fully bespoke optical assembly. Vexlum’s VECSEL technology uses semiconductor gain structures inside an external laser cavity, aiming to combine precise wavelength control and high power with a platform that can be manufactured in larger quantities.

Europe wants the component supply chain too

The EU contributed approximately €2.43 million to SEMIQLEAP, whose total project cost was about €3.46 million, and the programme ran from May 2024 to April 2026 under the European Innovation Council.

That funding sits inside a wider effort to build commercial capacity around quantum technology rather than relying only on Europe’s academic research base. Complete systems depend on cryogenics, lasers, photonics, control electronics, semiconductor components, packaging, metrology, and specialist software as well as the processor itself.

Those suppliers influence whether experimental machines can be manufactured repeatedly enough for customers to buy and operate them, while shortages or low production yields in one specialised component can slow deployment even when the central computing technology is advancing.

Vexlum is already investing beyond the research programme, having raised €10 million in February to expand semiconductor-chip and laser manufacturing in Finland. The company argues that limited availability of compact, high-power sources at precise wavelengths is becoming a constraint across quantum computing, atomic clocks, semiconductor metrology, and optical communications.

Commercial expansion will provide a harder test than a completed research programme because manufacturing processes have to survive higher volumes, customer qualification, maintenance requirements, yield variation, supplier constraints, and competition from alternative laser technologies.

Quantum hardware is also evolving quickly, so component suppliers need to scale without assuming that one architecture or wavelength requirement will dominate indefinitely. Flexibility across applications may prove as important as achieving high volumes for a single design.

SEMIQLEAP does not remove those uncertainties, nor does the project’s completion mean quantum lasers have suddenly become mass-market components. It shows Europe’s quantum industrial strategy moving into the manufacturing work required before scale becomes possible: automating fabrication, standardising testing, and turning precision laboratory hardware into products that can be made repeatedly.