Heralding techniques are useful in quantum communication to circumvent losses without resorting to error correction schemes or quantum repeaters. Such techniques are realized, for example,by monitoring for photon loss at the receiving end of the quantum link while not disturbing the transmitted quantum state. We describe and experimentally benchmark a scheme that incorporates error detection in a quantum channel connecting two transmon qubits using traveling microwave photons. This is achieved by encoding the quantum information as a time-bin superposition of a single photon, which simultaneously realizes high communication rates and high fidelities. The presented scheme is straightforward to implement in circuit QED and is fully microwave-controlled, making it an interesting candidate for future modular quantum computing architectures.
The duration and fidelity of qubit readout is a critical factor for applications in quantum information processing as it limits the fidelity of algorithms which reuse qubits after measurementor apply feedback based on the measurement result. Here we present fast multiplexed readout of five qubits in a single 1.2 GHz wide readout channel. Using a readout pulse length of 80 ns and populating readout resonators for less than 250 ns we find an average correct assignment probability for the five measured qubits to be 97%. The differences between the individual readout errors and those found when measuring the qubits simultaneously are within 1%. We employ individual Purcell filters for each readout resonator to suppress off-resonant driving, which we characterize by the dephasing imposed on unintentionally measured qubits. We expect the here presented readout scheme to become particularly useful for the selective readout of individual qubits in multi-qubit quantum processors.
Sharing information coherently between nodes of a quantum network is at the foundation of distributed quantum information processing. In this scheme, the computation is divided intosubroutines and performed on several smaller quantum registers connected by classical and quantum channels. A direct quantum channel, which connects nodes deterministically, rather than probabilistically, is advantageous for fault-tolerant quantum computation because it reduces the threshold requirements and can achieve larger entanglement rates. Here, we implement deterministic state transfer and entanglement protocols between two superconducting qubits fabricated on separate chips. Superconducting circuits constitute a universal quantum node capable of sending, receiving, storing, and processing quantum information. Our implementation is based on an all-microwave cavity-assisted Raman process which entangles or transfers the qubit state of a transmon-type artificial atom to a time-symmetric itinerant single photon. We transfer qubit states at a rate of 50kHz using the emitted photons which are absorbed at the receiving node with a probability of 98.1±0.1% achieving a transfer process fidelity of 80.02±0.07%. We also prepare on demand remote entanglement with a fidelity as high as 78.9±0.1%. Our results are in excellent agreement with numerical simulations based on a master equation description of the system. This deterministic quantum protocol has the potential to be used as a backbone of surface code quantum error correction across different nodes of a cryogenic network to realize large-scale fault-tolerant quantum computation in the circuit quantum electrodynamic architecture.
The process of photosynthesis, the main source of energy in the animate world, converts sunlight into chemical energy. The surprisingly high efficiency of this process is believed tobe enabled by an intricate interplay between the quantum nature of molecular structures in photosynthetic complexes and their interaction with the environment. Investigating these effects in biological samples is challenging due to their complex and disordered structure. Here we experimentally demonstrate a new approach for studying photosynthetic models based on superconducting quantum circuits. In particular, we demonstrate the unprecedented versatility and control of our method in an engineered three-site model of a pigment protein complex with realistic parameters scaled down in energy by a factor of 105. With this system we show that the excitation transport between quantum coherent sites disordered in energy can be enabled through the interaction with environmental noise. We also show that the efficiency of the process is maximized for structured noise resembling intramolecular phononic environments found in photosynthetic complexes.
Quantum computing architectures rely on classical electronics for control and readout. Employing classical electronics in a feedback loop with the quantum system allows to stabilizestates, correct errors and to realize specific feedforward-based quantum computing and communication schemes such as deterministic quantum teleportation. These feedback and feedforward operations are required to be fast compared to the coherence time of the quantum system to minimize the probability of errors. We present a field programmable gate array (FPGA) based digital signal processing system capable of real-time quadrature demodulation, determination of the qubit state and generation of state-dependent feedback trigger signals. The feedback trigger is generated with a latency of 110ns with respect to the timing of the analog input signal. We characterize the performance of the system for an active qubit initialization protocol based on dispersive readout of a superconducting qubit and discuss potential applications in feedback and feedforward algorithms.