Insider Brief
The U.S. Department of Energy announced that ORNL and PNNL have developed domestic technologies to produce ultra-high-purity silicon and germanium precursor materials intended to improve quantum device performance and strengthen the U.S. isotope supply chain.
The laboratories reduced concentrations of the noise-inducing isotopes Si-29 and Ge-73 to below 1 part per million in silane and germane, respectively, while producing silicon-28 with 99.9999% purity.
The effort combines ORNL’s electromagnetic isotope separation with PNNL’s chemical conversion, purification and thermal diffusion technologies to support quantum computing, semiconductor manufacturing and other advanced technology applications.
PRESS RELEASE — The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Isotope R&D and Production (IRP), within the Office of Science, today announced a major, multi-laboratory breakthrough in domestic stable isotope enrichment and production capabilities. Through a collaborative effort between Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), the U.S. has developed pioneering technologies to produce ultra-enriched silane (SiH4) and germane (GeH4) that are extremely depleted in noise-inducing contaminant isotopes.
