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
Nov
2021
Elucidating the local atomic and electronic structure of amorphous oxidized superconducting niobium films
Qubits made from superconducting materials are a mature platform for quantum information science application such as quantum computing. However, materials-based losses are now a limiting
factor in reaching the coherence times needed for applications. In particular, knowledge of the atomistic structure and properties of the circuit materials is needed to identify, understand, and mitigate materials-based decoherence channels. In this work we characterize the atomic structure of the native oxide film formed on Nb resonators by comparing fluctuation electron microscopy experiments to density functional theory calculations, finding that an amorphous layer consistent with an Nb2O5 stoichiometry. Comparing X-ray absorption measurements at the Oxygen K edge with first-principles calculations, we find evidence of d-type magnetic impurities in our sample, known to cause impedance in proximal superconductors. This work identifies the structural and chemical composition of the oxide layer grown on Nb superconductors, and shows that soft X-ray absorption can fingerprint magnetic impurities in these superconducting systems.
18
Nov
2021
Emission of photon multiplets by a dc-biased superconducting circuit
We observe the emission of bunches of k⩾1 photons by a circuit made of a microwave resonator in series with a voltage-biased tunable Josephson junction. The bunches are emitted at
specific values Vk of the bias voltage, for which each Cooper pair tunneling across the junction creates exactly k photons in the resonator. The latter is a micro-fabricated spiral coil which resonates and leaks photons at 4.4~GHz in a measurement line. Its characteristic impedance of 1.97~kΩ is high enough to reach a strong junction-resonator coupling and a bright emission of the k-photon bunches. We show that a RWA treatment of the system accounts quantitatively for the observed radiation intensity, from k=1 to 6, and over three orders of magnitude when varying the Josephson energy EJ. We also measure the second order correlation function of the radiated microwave to determine its Fano factor Fk, which in the low EJ limit, confirms with Fk=k the emission of k photon bunches. At larger EJ, a more complex behavior is observed in quantitative agreement with numerical simulations.
17
Nov
2021
Superconducting circuit optomechanics in topological lattices
Cavity optomechanics enables controlling mechanical motion via radiation pressure interaction, and has contributed to the quantum control of engineered mechanical systems ranging from
kg scale LIGO mirrors to nano-mechanical systems, enabling entanglement, squeezing of mechanical objects, to position measurements at the standard quantum limit, and quantum transduction. Yet, nearly all prior schemes have employed single- or few-mode optomechanical systems. In contrast, novel dynamics and applications are expected when utilizing optomechanical arrays and lattices, which enable to synthesize non-trivial band structures, and have been actively studied in the field of circuit QED. Superconducting microwave optomechanical circuits are a promising platform to implement such lattices, but have been compounded by strict scaling limitations. Here we overcome this challenge and realize superconducting circuit optomechanical lattices. We demonstrate non-trivial topological microwave modes in 1-D optomechanical chains as well as 2-D honeycomb lattices, realizing the canonical Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model. Exploiting the embedded optomechanical interaction, we show that it is possible to directly measure the mode shapes, without using any local probe or inducing perturbation. This enables us to reconstruct the full underlying lattice Hamiltonian beyond tight-binding approximations, and directly measure the existing residual disorder. The latter is found to be sufficiently small to observe fully hybridized topological edge modes. Such optomechanical lattices, accompanied by the measurement techniques introduced, offers an avenue to explore out of equilibrium physics in optomechanical lattices such as quantum and quench dynamics, topological properties and more broadly, emergent nonlinear dynamics in complex optomechanical systems with a large number of degrees of freedoms.
16
Nov
2021
Dissipative entanglement generation between two driven qubits in circuit quantum electrodynamics
An entangled state generation protocol for a system of two qubits driven with an ac signal and coupled through a resonator is introduced. We explain the mechanism of entanglement generation
in terms of an interplay between unitary Landau-Zener-Stuckelberg (LZS) transitions induced for appropriate amplitudes and frequencies of the applied ac signal and dissipative processes dominated by photon loss. In this way, we found that the steady state of the system can be tuned to be arbitrarily close to a Bell state, which is independent of the initial state. Effective two-qubit Hamiltonians that reproduce the resonance patterns associated with LZS transitions are derived.
15
Nov
2021
Robust preparation of Wigner-negative states with optimized SNAP-displacement sequences
Hosting non-classical states of light in three-dimensional microwave cavities has emerged as a promising paradigm for continuous-variable quantum information processing. Here we experimentally
demonstrate high-fidelity generation of a range of Wigner-negative states useful for quantum computation, such as Schrödinger-cat states, binomial states, Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) states, as well as cubic phase states. The latter states have been long sought after in quantum optics and were never achieved experimentally before. To do so, we use a sequence of interleaved selective number-dependent arbitrary phase (SNAP) gates and displacements. We optimize the state preparation in two steps. First we use a gradient-descent algorithm to optimize the parameters of the SNAP and displacement gates. Then we optimize the envelope of the pulses implementing the SNAP gates. Our results show that this way of creating highly non-classical states in a harmonic oscillator is robust to fluctuations of the system parameters such as the qubit frequency and the dispersive shift.
13
Nov
2021
Strain-spectroscopy of strongly interacting defects in superconducting qubits
The proper functioning of some micro-fabricated novel quantum devices, such as superconducting resonators and qubits, is severely affected by the presence of parasitic structural material
defects known as tunneling two-level-systems (TLS). Recent experiments have reported unambiguous evidence of the strong interaction between individual (coherent) TLS using strain-assisted spectroscopy. This work provides an alternative and simple theoretical insight that illustrates how to obtain the spectral response of such strongly interacting defects residing inside the amorphous tunnel barrier of a qubit’s Josephson junction. Moreover, the corresponding spectral signatures obtained here may serve to quickly and efficiently elucidate the actual state of these interacting TLS in experiments based on strain- or electric-field spectroscopy.
Predicting non-Markovian superconducting qubit dynamics from tomographic reconstruction
Non-Markovian noise presents a particularly relevant challenge in understanding and combating decoherence in quantum computers, yet is challenging to capture in terms of simple models.
Here we show that a simple phenomenological dynamical model known as the post-Markovian master equation (PMME) accurately captures and predicts non-Markovian noise in a superconducting qubit system. The PMME is constructed using experimentally measured state dynamics of an IBM Quantum Experience cloud-based quantum processor, and the model thus constructed successfully predicts the non-Markovian dynamics observed in later experiments. The model also allows the extraction of information about cross-talk and measures of non-Markovianity. We demonstrate definitively that the PMME model predicts subsequent dynamics of the processor better than the standard Markovian master equation.
11
Nov
2021
Period tripling due to parametric down-conversion in circuit QED
Discrete time-translation symmetry breaking can be observed in periodically-driven systems oscillating at a fraction of the frequency of the driving force. However, with the exception
of the parametric instability in period-doubling, multi-periodic driving does not lead to an instability threshold. In this paper, we point out that quantum vacuum fluctuations can be generically employed to induce period multiplication. In particular, we discuss the period-tripled states in circuit QED and propose a microwave setup. We show that for weak dissipation or strong driving, the time scale over which the period-tripled state is generated can be arbitrarily separated from the time-scale of the subsequent dephasing.
Broadband continuous variable entanglement generation using Kerr-free Josephson metamaterial
Entangled microwave photons form a fundamental resource for quantum information processing and sensing with continuous variables. We use a low-loss Josephson metamaterial comprising
superconducting non-linear asymmetric inductive elements to generate frequency (colour) entangled photons from vacuum fluctuations at a rate of 11 mega entangled bits per second with a potential rate above gigabit per second. The device is operated as a traveling wave parametric amplifier under Kerr-relieving biasing conditions. Furthermore, we realize the first successfully demonstration of single-mode squeezing in such devices – 2.4±0.7 dB below the zero-point level at half of modulation frequency.
Fast Universal Control of an Oscillator with Weak Dispersive Coupling to a Qubit
Efficient quantum control of an oscillator is necessary for many bosonic applications including error-corrected computation, quantum-enhanced sensing, robust quantum communication,
and quantum simulation. For these applications, oscillator control is often realized through off-resonant hybridization to a qubit with dispersive shift χ where typical operation times of 2π/χ are routinely assumed. Here, we challenge this assumption by introducing and demonstrating a novel control method with typical operation times over an order of magnitude faster than 2π/χ. Using large auxiliary displacements of the oscillator to enhance gate speed, we introduce a universal gate set with built-in dynamical decoupling consisting of fast conditional displacements and qubit rotations. We demonstrate the method using a superconducting cavity weakly coupled to a transmon qubit in a regime where previously known methods would fail. Our demonstrations include preparation of a single-photon state 30 times faster than 2π/χ with 98±1(%) fidelity and preparation of squeezed vacuum with a squeezing level of 11.1 dB, the largest intracavity squeezing reported in the microwave regime. Finally, we demonstrate fast measurement-free preparation of logical states for the binomial and Gottesman-Kitaev-Preskill (GKP) code, and we identify possible fidelity limiting mechanisms including oscillator dephasing.