From the BTU laboratory to the Brandenburg Innovation Award 2026

It is precisely from this environment that a company has now emerged which has been awarded the Brandenburg Innovation Prize 2026: quantum grade materials [qgm] GmbH, winner of the NEUES.SCHAFFEN. category.

The research background: the “HoCHQuant” project

The spin-off originated from the “HoCHQuant” research project, which was launched at the Physical Chemistry chair under the leadership of Prof. Dr Jörg Acker. The aim of the project was to produce isotopically pure semiconductor hydrogens such as silane-28 – materials which, due to their altered physical and chemical properties, offer greater stability for quantum processes, but are practically unavailable on the global market.

The four-member project team – Dr Owen C. Ernst, Dr David Uebel, Anne Handschick-Ernst and Roman Brendler – worked under Ernst’s leadership for two years, from June 2024 to September 2026, at the BTU Campus Senftenberg and at Dock3 Lausitz in the Schwarze Pumpe Industrial Park, to bring the process to market readiness. The work was funded by an EXIST research transfer grant from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action totalling more than 900,000 euros.

The idea originated at the IKZ Berlin

However, the original business idea did not originate at the BTU, but at the Leibniz Institute for Crystal Growth (IKZ) in Berlin. There, Ernst and Uebel were working on SiGe heterostructures for quantum computers and repeatedly came up against the same hurdle: a lack of high-purity silicon-28. In 2024, the team relocated their project to the BTU to make use of the necessary chemical and safety infrastructure – marking the start of ‘HoCHQuant’.

From funding to a business – and to an award

The commercial viability of the idea became apparent early on: as early as 2023, even before the project had officially started, the team won the Lausitz Start-up Award with their concept. On 2 February 2026, quantum grade materials [qgm] GmbH was formally established by Ernst, Handschick-Ernst and Uebel.

The patented process enables the extraction of high-purity silicon-28 from a raw material commonly available on the market – at scale and without producing toxic waste. “Here, high demand meets what is currently a very limited supply. To ensure technological sovereignty, we must be able to produce these critical raw materials locally,” says Ernst, describing his company’s starting point. In the medium term, [qgm] aims to cover a large part of the European market for these materials.

The award came just a few months after the company was founded: Minister Martina Klement presented the team with the Brandenburg Innovation Prize 2026 at the fx.center in Potsdam – the provisional culmination of a journey that led from basic university research, through a government-funded transfer project, to state-wide recognition.