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
02
Sep
2021
Quantum Design for Advanced Qubits
Simulations of high-complexity quantum systems, which are intractable for classical computers, can be efficiently done with quantum computers. Similarly, the increasingly complex quantum
electronic circuits themselves will also need efficient simulations on quantum computers, which in turn will be important in quantum-aided design for next-generation quantum processors. Here, we implement variational quantum eigensolvers to simulate a Josephson-junction-array quantum circuit, which leads to the discovery of a new type of high-performance qubit, plasonium. We fabricate this new qubit and demonstrate that it exhibits not only long coherence time and high gate fidelity, but also a shrinking physical size and larger anharmonicity than the transmon, which can offer a number of advantages for scaling up multi-qubit devices. Our work opens the way to designing advanced quantum processors using existing quantum computing resources.
01
Sep
2021
Entanglement Engineering by Transmon Qubit in a Circuit QED
this study significantly emphasizes on the entanglement engineering using a transmon qubit. A transmon qubit is created with two superconducting islands coupled with two Josephson Junction
embedded into a transmission line. The transmon qubit energies are manipulated through its coupling to the transmission line. The key factor here is the coupling factor between transmission line and qubit by which the quantum features of the system such as transmon decay rate, energy dispersion, and related coherence time are controlled. To complete knowledge about the design, the system is quantum mechanically analyzed and the related Hamiltonian is derived. Accordingly, the dynamics equation of motions is derived and so the energy dispersion and the coupled system coherence time are investigated. The system engineering should be established in such a way that satisfies the energy dispersion and the coherence time. However, to analyze the entanglement between modes, it needs to calculate the number of photons of the transmission lines and the transmon qubit, and also the phase sensitive cross-correlation. The important section of this study emphasizes on engineering the coupling between the transmon qubit and transmission line to enhance the entanglement. The results show that around the Josephson Junction location where the more coupling is established the more entanglement between modes is created.
Implementing a Ternary Decomposition of the Toffoli Gate on Fixed-FrequencyTransmon Qutrits
Quantum computation is conventionally performed using quantum operations acting on two-level quantum bits, or qubits. Qubits in modern quantum computers suffer from inevitable detrimental
interactions with the environment that cause errors during computation, with multi-qubit operations often being a primary limitation. Most quantum devices naturally have multiple accessible energy levels beyond the lowest two traditionally used to define a qubit. Qudits offer a larger state space to store and process quantum information, reducing complexity of quantum circuits and improving efficiency of quantum algorithms. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a ternary decomposition of a multi-qubit operation on cloud-enabled fixed-frequency superconducting transmons. Specifically, we realize an order-preserving Toffoli gate consisting of four two-transmon operations, whereas the optimal order-preserving binary decomposition uses eight \texttt{CNOT}s on a linear transmon topology. Both decompositions are benchmarked via truth table fidelity where the ternary approach outperforms on most sets of transmons on \texttt{ibmq\_jakarta}, and is further benchmarked via quantum process tomography on one set of transmons to achieve an average gate fidelity of 78.00\% ± 1.93\%.
Synthesizing five-body interaction in a superconducting quantum circuit
Synthesizing many-body interaction Hamiltonian is a central task in quantum simulation. However, it is challenging to synthesize interactions including more than two spins. Borrowing
tools from quantum optics, we synthesize five-body spin-exchange interaction in a superconducting quantum circuit by simultaneously exciting four independent qubits with time-energy correlated photon quadruples generated from a qudit. During the dynamic evolution of the five-body interaction, a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger state is generated in a single step with fidelity estimated to be 0.685. We compare the influence of noise on the three-, four- and five-body interaction as a step toward answering the question on the quantum origin of chiral molecules. We also demonstrate a many-body Mach-Zehnder interferometer which potentially has a Heisenberg-limit sensitivity. This study paves a way for quantum simulation involving many-body interactions and high excited states of quantum circuits.
31
Aug
2021
Hexagonal Boron Nitride (hBN) as a Low-loss Dielectric for Superconducting Quantum Circuits and Qubits
Dielectrics with low loss at microwave frequencies are imperative for high-coherence solid-state quantum computing platforms. We study the dielectric loss of hexagonal boron nitride
(hBN) thin films in the microwave regime by measuring the quality factor of parallel-plate capacitors (PPCs) made of NbSe2-hBN-NbSe2 heterostructures integrated into superconducting circuits. The extracted microwave loss tangent of hBN is bounded to be at most in the mid-10-6 range in the low temperature, single-photon regime. We integrate hBN PPCs with aluminum Josephson junctions to realize transmon qubits with coherence times reaching 25 μs, consistent with the hBN loss tangent inferred from resonator measurements. The hBN PPC reduces the qubit feature size by approximately two-orders of magnitude compared to conventional all-aluminum coplanar transmons. Our results establish hBN as a promising dielectric for building high-coherence quantum circuits with substantially reduced footprint and, with a high energy participation that helps to reduce unwanted qubit cross-talk.
Measurement-Free Ultrafast Quantum Error Correction by Using Multi-Controlled Gates in Higher-Dimensional State Space
Quantum error correction is a crucial step beyond the current noisy-intermediate-scale quantum device towards fault-tolerant quantum computing. However, most of the error corrections
ever demonstrated rely on post-selection of events or post-correction of states, based on measurement results repeatedly recorded during circuit execution. On the other hand, real-time error correction is supposed to be performed through classical feedforward of the measurement results to data qubits. It provides unavoidable latency from conditional electronics that would limit the scalability of the next-generation quantum processors. Here we propose a new approach to real-time error correction that is free from measurement and realized using multi-controlled gates based on higher-dimensional state space. Specifically, we provide a series of novel decompositions of a Toffoli gate by using the lowest three energy levels of a transmon that significantly reduce the number of two-qubit gates and discuss their essential features, such as extendability to an arbitrary number of control qubits, the necessity of pure CNOT gates, and usefulness of their incomplete variants. Combined with the recently demonstrated schemes of fast two-qubit gates and all-microwave qubit reset, it would substantially shorten the time required for error correction and resetting ancilla qubits compared to a measurement-based approach and provide an error correction rate of ≳1~MHz with high accuracy for three-qubit bit- and phase-flip errors.
30
Aug
2021
TOF-SIMS Analysis of Decoherence Sources in Nb Superconducting Resonators
Superconducting qubits have emerged as a potentially foundational platform technology for addressing complex computational problems deemed intractable with classical computing. Despite
recent advances enabling multiqubit designs that exhibit coherence lifetimes on the order of hundreds of μs, material quality and interfacial structures continue to curb device performance. When niobium is deployed as the superconducting material, two-level system defects in the thin film and adjacent dielectric regions introduce stochastic noise and dissipate electromagnetic energy at the cryogenic operating temperatures. In this study, we utilize time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) to understand the role specific fabrication procedures play in introducing such dissipation mechanisms in these complex systems. We interrogated Nb thin films and transmon qubit structures fabricated by Rigetti Computing and at the National Institute of Standards and Technology through slight variations in the processing and vacuum conditions. We find that when Nb film is sputtered onto the Si substrate, oxide and silicide regions are generated at various interfaces. We also observe that impurity species such as niobium hydrides and carbides are incorporated within the niobium layer during the subsequent lithographic patterning steps. The formation of these resistive compounds likely impact the superconducting properties of the Nb thin film. Additionally, we observe the presence of halogen species distributed throughout the patterned thin films. We conclude by hypothesizing the source of such impurities in these structures in an effort to intelligently fabricate superconducting qubits and extend coherence times moving forward.
Demonstration of dynamical control of three-level open systems with a superconducting qutrit
We propose a method for the dynamical control in three-level open systems and realize it in the experiment with a superconducting qutrit. Our work demonstrates that in the Markovian
environment for a relatively long time (3 us), the systemic populations or coherence can still strictly follow the preset evolution paths. This is the first experiment for precisely controlling the Markovian dynamics of three-level open systems, providing a solid foundation for the future realization of dynamical control in multiple open systems. An instant application of the techniques demonstrated in this experiment is to stabilize the energy of quantum batteries.
Probing the Role of Low Temperature Vacuum Baking on Photon Lifetimes in Superconducting Niobium 3-D Resonators
We discuss a potentially dramatic source of quantum decoherence in three-dimensional niobium superconducting resonators and in two-dimensional transmon qubits that utilize oxidized
niobium: an aggravation of two-level system (TLS) induced losses driven by vacuum baking at temperatures and durations typically used in transmon qubit fabrication. By coupling RF measurements on cavities with time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry studies on an SRF cavity cutout, we find that modest vacuum baking (150-200~∘C for 5~min-11~hrs) produces a partially depleted native niobium oxide which likely contains a large concentration of oxygen vacancies that drive TLS losses. Continued baking is found to eliminate this depleted layer and mediate these additional losses.
26
Aug
2021
Monitoring fast superconducting qubit dynamics using a neural network
Weak measurements of a superconducting qubit produce noisy voltage signals that are weakly correlated with the qubit state. To recover individual quantum trajectories from these noisy
signals, traditional methods require slow qubit dynamics and substantial prior information in the form of calibration experiments. Monitoring rapid qubit dynamics, e.g. during quantum gates, requires more complicated methods with increased demand for prior information. Here, we experimentally demonstrate an alternative method for accurately tracking rapidly driven superconducting qubit trajectories that uses a Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) artificial neural network with minimal prior information. Despite few training assumptions, the LSTM produces trajectories that include qubit-readout resonator correlations due to a finite detection bandwidth. In addition to revealing rotated measurement eigenstates and a reduced measurement rate in agreement with theory for a fixed drive, the trained LSTM also correctly reconstructs evolution for an unknown drive with rapid modulation. Our work enables new applications of weak measurements with faster or initially unknown qubit dynamics, such as the diagnosis of coherent errors in quantum gates.