I am going to post here all newly submitted articles on the arXiv related to superconducting circuits. If your article has been accidentally forgotten, feel free to contact me
23
Feb
2026
Electrical post-fabrication tuning of aluminum Josephson junctions at room temperature
Josephson junctions are a key element of superconducting quantum technology, serving as the core building blocks of superconducting qubits. We present an experimental study on room-temperature
electrical tuning of aluminum junctions, showing that voltage pulses can controllably increase their resistance and adjust the Josephson energy while maintaining qubit quality factors above 1 million. We find that the rate of resistance increase scales exponentially with pulse amplitude during manipulation, after which the spontaneous resistance increase scales proportionally to the amount of manipulation. We show that this spontaneous increase halts at cryogenic temperatures, and resumes again at room temperature. Using our stepwise protocol, we achieve up to a 270% increase in junction resistance, corresponding to a reduction of nearly 2 GHz of the qubit transition frequency. These results establish the achievable range, relaxation behavior, and practical limits of electrical tuning, enabling post-fabrication mitigation of frequency crowding in quantum processors.
20
Feb
2026
Mitigation of Magnetic Flux Trapping in Superconducting Electronics Using Moats
Magnetic flux (vortex) trapping remains a major obstacle to very large scale integration in superconducting electronics. Moats — etched regions in circuit layers placed in groundplanes and around critical circuitry — offer a simple passive approach to sequester flux. Here, we systematically examine the effectiveness of moat arrays in superconducting niobium films as a function of geometry (size, shape, and density) and background magnetic field. By measuring the vortex expulsion field, we estimate the flux saturation number and flux trapping temperature for a range of geometries. We find that many moat designs effectively sequester flux in magnetically shielded environments (< 1 μT), with high-aspect-ratio rectangular "slit" moats providing the strongest mitigation at minimal area cost. However, our measurements show that moats alone do not eliminate flux trapping in non-ideal films, as vortices can preferentially pin at material defects. These results provide design guidance for flux mitigation in superconducting integrated circuits and highlight the need for combined optimization of circuit geometries and materials.[/expand]
Qubit error bursts in superconducting quantum processors of Quantum Inspire: quasiparticle pumping and anomalous time dependence
We investigate qubit error bursts in 5- and 7-transmon processors of similar design, fabrication and packaging, but with different types of qubit Josephson junctions. Measurements for
each are performed in two refrigerators to discern device-specific from refrigerator-dependent characteristics. The duration and rate of bursts are device specific but within the range of prior experiments and consistent with ionizing radiation. We observe two unforeseen signatures specifically in the processor with Dolan junctions. First, increasing the rate of π pulsing in the detection scheme shortens the recovery time to equilibrium, which is explained by a quasiparticle pumping mechanism. The second signature is an anomalous time dependence in the burst rate: a surge happens days or weeks after cooldown, followed by a strong suppression that persists until thermal cycling.
12
Feb
2026
Millisecond-Scale Calibration and Benchmarking of Superconducting Qubits
Superconducting qubit parameters drift on sub-second timescales, motivating calibration and benchmarking techniques that can be executed on millisecond timescales. We demonstrate an
on-FPGA workflow that co-locates pulse generation, data acquisition, analysis, and feed-forward, eliminating CPU round trips. Within this workflow, we introduce sparse-sampling and on-FPGA inference tools, including computationally efficient methods for estimation of exponential and sine-like response functions, as well as on-FPGA implementations of Nelder-Mead optimization and golden-section search. These methods enable low-latency primitives for readout calibration, spectroscopy, pulse-amplitude calibration, coherence estimation, and benchmarking. We deploy this toolset to estimate T1 in 10 ms, optimize readout parameters in 100 ms, optimize pulse amplitudes in 1 ms, and perform Clifford randomized gate benchmarking in 107 ms on a flux-tunable superconducting transmon qubit. Running a closed-loop on-FPGA recalibration protocol continuously for 6 hours enables more than 74,000 consecutive recalibrations and yields gate errors that consistently retain better performance than the baseline initial calibration. Correlation analysis shows that recalibration suppresses coupling of gate error to control-parameter drift while preserving a coherence-linked performance. Finally, we quantify uncertainty versus time-to-decision under our sparse sampling approaches and identify optimal parameter regimes for efficient estimation of qubit and pulse parameters.
Experimental setup for the combined study of spin ensembles and superconducting quantum circuits
A hybrid quantum computing architecture combining quantum processors and quantum memory units allows for exploiting each component’s unique properties to enhance the overall performance
of the total system. However, superconducting qubits are highly sensitive to magnetic fields, while spin ensembles require finite fields for control, creating a major integration challenge. In this work, we demonstrate the first experimental setup that satisfies these constraints and provides verified qubit stability. Our cryogenic setup comprises two spatially and magnetically decoupled sample volumes inside a single dilution refrigerator: one hosting flux-tunable superconducting qubits and the other a spin ensemble equipped with a superconducting solenoid generating fields up to 50 mT. We show that several layers of Cryophy shielding and an additional superconducting aluminum shield suppress magnetic crosstalk by more than eight orders of magnitude, ensuring stability of the qubit’s performance. Moreover, the operation of the solenoid adds minimal thermal load on the relevant stages of the dilution refrigerator. Our results enable scalable hybrid quantum architectures with low-loss integration, marking a key step toward scalable hybrid quantum computing platforms.
Structural control of two-level defect density revealed by high-throughput correlative measurements of Josephson junctions
Materials defects in Josephson junctions (JJs), often referred to as two-level systems (TLS), couple to superconducting qubits and are a critical bottleneck for scalable quantum processors.
Despite their importance, understanding the microscopic sources of TLS and how to mitigate them has remained a major challenge. Here, we demonstrate a high-throughput, correlated approach to trace the microstructural origins of strongly-coupled TLS in Josephson circuits. We assembled a massive dataset of TLS across 6,000 Al/AlOx/Al JJs and more than 600 atomic resolution transmission electron microscopy images. We statistically link fabrication, microstructure, and TLS occurrence, revealing a strong correlation between Al electrode thickness, Al grain size, and TLS density. Correspondingly, we find a two-thirds reduction in TLS prompted by a change in electrode fabrication parameters. These results demonstrate a robust, data-driven methodology to understand and control defects in quantum circuits and pave the way for significantly reducing TLS density.
Control the qubit-qubit coupling with double superconducting resonators
We experimentally studied the switching off processes in the double-resonator coupler superconducting quantum this http URL both frequency and time-domain, we observed the variation
of qubit-qubit effective coupling by tuning qubits’frequencies. According to the measurement results, by just shifting qubits‘ frequencies smaller than 50 MHz, the effective qubit-qubit coupling strength can be tuned from switching off point to two qubit gate point (effective coupling larger than 5 MHz) in double-resonator superconducting quantum circuit. The double-resonator coupler superconducting quantum circuit has the advantage of simple fabrications, introducing less flux noises, reducing occupancy of dilution refrigerator cables, which might supply a promising platform for future large-scale superconducting quantum processors.
11
Feb
2026
Two-Level System Spectroscopy from Correlated Multilevel Relaxation in Superconducting Qubits
Transmon qubits are a cornerstone of modern superconducting quantum computing platforms. Temporal fluctuations of energy relaxation in these qubits are widely attributed to microscopic
two-level systems (TLSs) in device dielectrics and interfaces, yet isolating individual defects typically relies on tuning the qubit or the TLS into resonance. We demonstrate a novel spectroscopy method for fixed-frequency transmons based on multilevel relaxation: repeated preparation of the second excited state and simultaneous T1 extraction of the first and second excited states reveals characteristic correlations in the decay rates of adjacent transitions. From these correlations we identify one or more dominant TLSs and reconstruct their frequency drift over time. Remarkably, we find that TLSs detuned by ≳100MHz from the qubit transition can still significantly influence relaxation. The proposed method provides a powerful tool for TLS spectroscopy without the need to tune the transmon frequency, either via a flux-tunable inductor or AC-Stark shifts.
10
Feb
2026
Magneto-optical study of Nb thin films for superconducting qubits
Among the recognized sources of decoherence in superconducting qubits, the spatial inhomogeneity of the superconducting state and the possible presence of magnetic-flux vortices remain
comparatively underexplored. Niobium is commonly used as a structural material in transmon qubits that host Josephson junctions, and excess dissipation anywhere in the transmon can become a bottleneck that limits overall quantum performance. The metal/substrate interfacial layer may simultaneously host pair-breaking loss channels (e.g., two-level systems, TLS) and control thermal transport, thereby affecting dissipation and temperature stability. Here, we use quantitative magneto-optical imaging of the magnetic-flux distribution to characterize the homogeneity of the superconducting state and the critical current density, jc, in niobium films fabricated under different sputtering conditions. The imaging reveals distinct flux-penetration regimes, ranging from a nearly ideal Bean critical state to strongly nonuniform thermo-magnetic dendritic avalanches. By fitting the measured magnetic-induction profiles, we extract jc and correlate it with film physical properties and with measured qubit internal quality factors. Our results indicate that the Nb/Si interlayer can be a significant contributor to decoherence and should be considered an important factor that must be optimized.
Field-Dependent Qubit Flux Noise Simulated from Materials-Specific Disordered Exchange Interactions Between Paramagnetic Adsorbates
Superconducting quantum devices, from qubits and magnetometers to dark matter detectors, are influenced by magnetic flux noise originating from paramagnetic surface defects and impurities.
These spin systems can feature complex dynamics, including a Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, that depend on the lattice, interactions, external fields, and disorder. However, the disorder included in typical models is not materials-specific, diminishing the ability to accurately capture measured flux noise phenomena. We present a first principles-based simulation of a spin lattice consisting of paramagnetic O2 molecules on an Al2O3 surface, a likely flux noise source in superconducting qubits, to elucidate opportunities to mitigate flux noise. We simulate an ensemble of surface adsorbates with disordered orientations and calculate the orientation-dependent exchange couplings using density functional theory. Thus, our spin simulation has no free parameters or assumed functional form of the disorder, and captures correlation in the defect landscape that would appear in real systems. We calculate a range of exchange interactions between electron pairs, with the smallest values, 0.016 meV and -0.023 meV, being in the range required to act as a two-level system and couple to GHz resonators. We calculate the flux noise frequency, temperature, and applied external magnetic field dependence, as well as the susceptibility-flux noise cross-correlation. Calculated trends agree with experiment, demonstrating that a surface harboring paramagnetic adsorbates arranged with materials-specific disorder and interactions captures the various properties of magnetic flux noise observed in superconducting circuits. In addition, we find that an external electric field can tune the spin-spin interaction strength and reduce magnetic flux noise.