BEYOND URANIUM | COVER STORY
“We have a portfolio consisting of 15 to 25 products, depending on how you look at it. Different isotopes, different elements, different enrichment levels, and supplied in different chemical forms. It’s a completely different business,” says van Hezel. Those products support three principal markets:
medical isotope precursors, scientific research, and industrial applications. “One of the largest markets is medical,” van Hezel
says, although he adds that there is no radioactivity within the Almelo site. “Many of the modified isotopes that we supply are irradiated later in the supply chain so they become radioisotopes but here in Almelo we only produce stable isotopes,” he explains. The second major area is scientific research,
particularly in relation to large-scale physics projects. The third key focus for the isotopes business is industrial applications, which increasingly includes semiconductors and quantum computing.
The quantum computing opportunity While quantum computing is still evolving across several technical pathways, one of the approaches supported by Urenco relies on spin-based qubits in silicon and germanium. “In contrast to classical computing, where information is represented as zeros or ones, quantum systems can exist in a combination of both states,” explains Wietse Smit, Development Engineer at Urenco Nederland. “This allows the quantum state space to grow exponentially with the number of qubits, enabling major computational advantages for specific applications.” The challenge, however, lies in maintaining stable quantum states. As Wietse says: “A quantum state is very difficult to create. It’s extremely sensitive to the environment. Interactions with the environment can cause decoherence and destroy the quantum state.” Several isotopes exist in silicon, some of which are
problematic for quantum computing purposes. Wietse says: “Silicon-29 is really the disturbing isotope in this whole process. It has a magnetic moment, which creates magnetic noise”. This can magnetic noise can disrupt quantum coherence and in these systems, isotopic composition is therefore not a secondary material property, but a core requirement. In this application Urenco is removing Si-29 and
creating Si-28 with very high purity. .“Current customer requirements already reach 99.9% or 99.99% silicon-28 purity. In the future we may go even higher, corresponding to very low residual Si-29 concentrations. Our cascades are already capable of doing that,” says Wietse. “The customer requires two things,” Wietse notes. “Very high isotopic purity and very high chemical purity. Both determine how well the quantum system functions.” He continues: “You need the quantum particle
to remain stable long enough to perform useful calculations,” they explained. “If your isotopic or chemical purity is insufficient, coherence time decreases and your calculations collapse too early.” Indeed, producing enriched isotopes is only part of
the challenge. Urenco also carries out the chemical conversion processes required to transform enriched gases into commercially usable products. “Our customers do not always need a product in gaseous form so we have a lot of chemical conversion
capability in-house. We can supply oxides, powders, metals, pellets, discs – whatever is needed for the application,” says van Hezel. For quantum computing, that typically means converting enriched silicon fluoride into silane gas, the precursor commonly used in semiconductor wafer deposition. “We are now developing the conversion route from
silicon fluoride to silane. We hope to provide our first commercial enriched silicon-28 silane this year,” van Hezel says, adding: “Initially at relatively small scale, but we intend to ramp up significantly next year.” While the isotope and chemical purity issue is a
challenge the attraction of silicon-based quantum systems lies in their compatibility with the existing semiconductor industry, as Wietse says: “The big advantage of silicon is that you can leverage a lot of the current semiconductor technology. The semiconductor world is already a huge market with extremely complex manufacturing infrastructure. You can use much of that existing equipment to create quantum systems using silicon.” That compatibility may prove essential if quantum
computing eventually moves from experimental systems to mass deployment. However, the implication is that should the quantum computing sector emerge in any significant way, scaling of high purity isotope production will also need to keep pace. “You may have a few Qubits today, but eventually a useful quantum computer may require thousands or even millions of physical qubits, depending on the level of error correction required. Scaling is much more achievable if you can use existing semiconductor manufacturing technologies,” says Wietse. Another commonly used semiconductor material is
germanium and for quantum computing applications Urenco also centres on producing germanium depleted in the germanium-73 istope. “Germanium has five isotopes, but only germanium-73 has a magnetic moment. For quantum applications we therefore deplete germanium-73 as much as possible,” explains Wietse.
www.neimagazine.com | June 2026 | 37
The attraction of enriched silicon-based quantum systems lies in their compatibility with the existing semiconductor industry. Source: Fraunhofer ISE
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