Universal non-adiabatic control of small-gap superconducting qubits

  1. Daniel L. Campbell,
  2. Yun-Pil Shim,
  3. Bharath Kannan,
  4. Roni Winik,
  5. Alexander Melville,
  6. Bethany M. Niedzielski,
  7. Jonilyn L. Yoder,
  8. Charles Tahan,
  9. Simon Gustavsson,
  10. and William D. Oliver
Resonant transverse driving of a two-level system as viewed in the rotating frame couples two degenerate states at the Rabi frequency, an amazing equivalence that emerges in quantum
mechanics. While spectacularly successful at controlling natural and artificial quantum systems, certain limitations may arise (e.g., the achievable gate speed) due to non-idealities like the counter-rotating term. Here, we explore a complementary approach to quantum control based on non-resonant, non-adiabatic driving of a longitudinal parameter in the presence of a fixed transverse coupling. We introduce a superconducting composite qubit (CQB), formed from two capacitively coupled transmon qubits, which features a small avoided crossing — smaller than the environmental temperature — between two energy levels. We control this low-frequency CQB using solely baseband pulses, non-adiabatic transitions, and coherent Landau-Zener interference to achieve fast, high-fidelity, single-qubit operations with Clifford fidelities exceeding 99.7%. We also perform coupled qubit operations between two low-frequency CQBs. This work demonstrates that universal non-adiabatic control of low-frequency qubits is feasible using solely baseband pulses.

Semiconductor-inspired superconducting quantum computing

  1. Yun-Pil Shim,
  2. and Charles Tahan
Superconducting circuits offer tremendous design flexibility in the quantum regime culminating most recently in the demonstration of few qubit systems supposedly approaching the threshold
for fault-tolerant quantum information processing. Competition in the solid-state comes from semiconductor qubits, where nature has bestowed some almost magical and very useful properties which can be utilized for spin qubit based quantum computing. Here we begin to explore how selective design principles deduced from spin-based systems could be used to advance superconducting qubit science. We take an initial step along this path proposing an encoded qubit approach realizable with state-of-the-art tunable Josephson junction qubits. Our results show that this design philosophy holds promise, enables microwave-free control with minimal overhead (zero overhead in 2-qubit gates), and offers a pathway to future qubit designs with new capabilities such as with higher fidelity or, perhaps, operation at higher temperature. The approach is especially suited to qubits based on variable super-semi junctions.

Superconducting-semiconductor quantum devices: from qubits to particle detectors

  1. Yun-Pil Shim,
  2. and Charles Tahan
Recent improvements in materials growth and fabrication techniques may finally allow for superconducting semiconductors to realize their potential. Here we build on a recent proposal
to construct superconducting devices such as wires, Josephson junctions, and qubits inside and out-of single crystal silicon or germanium. Using atomistic fabrication techniques such as STM hydrogen lithography, heavily-doped superconducting regions within a single crystal could be constructed. We describe the characteristic parameters of basic superconducting elements—a 1D wire and a tunneling Josephson junction—and estimate the values for boron-doped silicon. The epitaxial, single-crystal nature of these devices, along with the extreme flexibility in device design down to the single-atom scale, may enable lower-noise or new types of devices and physics. We consider applications for such super-silicon devices, showing that the state-of-the-art transmon qubit and the sought-after phase-slip qubit can both be realized. The latter qubit leverages the natural high kinetic inductance of these materials. Building on this, we explore how kinetic inductance based particle detectors (e.g., photon or phonon) could be realized with potential application in astronomy or nanomechanics. We discuss super-semi devices (such as in silicon, germanium, or diamond) which would not require atomistic fabrication approaches and could be realized today.

Bottom-up superconducting and Josephson junction devices inside a Group-IV semiconductor

  1. Yun-Pil Shim,
  2. and Charles Tahan
We propose superconducting devices made from precision hole-doped regions within a silicon (or germanium) single crystal. We analyze the properties of this superconducting semiconductor
and show that practical superconducting wires, Josephson tunnel junctions or weak links, SQUIDs, and qubits are realizable. This work motivates the pursuit of bottom-up superconductivity for improved or fundamentally different technology and physics.