Speaker

Paul Heremans

CTO & Senior Fellow - imec / Professor - KU Leuven

Biography

Paul L. Heremans is corporate chief technology officer at imec and senior fellow. He is also a Professor in the Electrical Engineering department at the KU Leuven. Paul received his PhD in Electrical Engineering from the KU Leuven, Belgium, in 1990. After completing his PhD, he joined the opto-electronics group at imec, where he contributed to advancements in optical inter-chip interconnects and high-efficiency III-V thin-film surface-textured light-emitting diodes. Since 2024, he served as senior vice president of the sector Industry & Consumer at imec. In October 2025, Paul was promoted to corporate CTO. He is responsible for overseeing imec’s technology strategy in semiconductor technology, devices, and sensors. He drives innovation across research and development, fosters collaboration between industry and academia, and ensures that technological initiatives align with the organization’s long-term vision. Paul is recognized for his scientific excellence and impactful contributions and holds the distinguished title of Senior Fellow at imec. He has been the holder of two advanced ERC grants.

Talk(s)

12:20 PM

Photonics for quantum

Ionic and atomic quantum compute and sensing systems use light to manipulate, control and read out the ions and neutral atoms that contain the quantum state. Today, extensive optical benches are used for the manipulation of the required photons. Scale-up towards systems of many thousands of atoms or ions will require scale-down of these optical control systems. To that end, it is required to develop dedicated photonic integrated circuits operating over a broad wavelength range, spanning from the UV to the near-infrared, because qubit state manipulation spans this whole spectrum. To keep the fidelity of the quantum compute operation, there are stringent requirements to the photonic devices. In the presentation, we will present the developments that we pursue at imec towards the creation of a photonic platform that will allow industry to create application-specific photonic integrated circuits for these quantum applications.