“I still remember when I was starting out with my PhD and Jeff (Young) asked me ‘what do you want to do?’” said Xiruo Yan. “So I said, ‘I’ve always wanted to go into quantum computing.”
Yan first realized his interest in quantum mechanics at the University of Waterloo, where he completed his undergraduate studies in 2014. At the time, the Institute for Quantum Computing had recently opened and had a new building, and the whole atmosphere around quantum computing felt exciting and new. By his third year in Waterloo, Yan wanted to build a quantum computer.
When he came to UBC in 2014 (it was winter in Waterloo, and when he left the airport in Vancouver he immediately saw cherry blossoms), he began working on his Master’s with Jeff Young. At UBC, Young introduced Yan to new experimental skills including how to fabricate single-photon detectors in the cleanroom in the Advanced Nanofabrication Facility at the Stewart Blusson Quantum Matter Institute (Blusson QMI). Since then, he has been working—often in the cleanroom—to bring theoretical ideas in quantum computing to life.
