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
25
Aug
2021
Half-integer Shapiro-steps in superconducting qubit with a π-Josephson junction
A superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) comprising 0- and π-Josephson junctions (JJs), called π-SQUID, is studied by the resistively shunted junction model. The π-SQUID
shows half-integer Shapiro-steps (SS) under microwave irradiation at the voltage V = (ℏ/2e)Ω(n/2), with angular frequency Ω and half-integer n/2 in addition to integer n. We show that the π-SQUID can be a π-qubit with spontaneous loop currents by which the half-integer SS are induced. Making the 0- and π-JJs equivalent is a key for the half-integer SS and realizing the π-qubit.
Merged-element transmons on Si fins: the FinMET
A merged-element transmon (MET) device, based on Si fins, is proposed and the steps to form such a „FinMET“ are demonstrated. This new application of fin technology capitalizes
on the anisotropic etch of Si(111) relative to Si(110) to define atomically flat, high aspect ratio Si tunnel barriers with epitaxial superconductor contacts on the parallel side-wall surfaces. This process circumvents the challenges associated with the growth of low-loss insulating barriers on lattice matched superconductors. By implementing low-loss, intrinsic float-zone Si as the barrier material rather than commonly used, lossy Al2O3, the FinMET is expected to overcome problems with standard transmons by (1) reducing dielectric losses; (2) minimizing the formation of two-level system spectral features; (3) exhibiting greater control over barrier thickness and qubit frequency spread, especially when combined with commercial fin fabrication and atomic-layer digital etching; (4) reducing the footprint by four orders of magnitude; and (5) allowing scalable fabrication. Here, fabrication of Si fins on Si(110) substrates with shadow-deposited Al electrodes is demonstrated. The formation of FinMET devices is expected to allow tunnel junction patterning with optical lithography. This facilitates uniform fabrication on Si wafers based on existing infrastructure for fin-based devices while simultaneously avoiding lossy amorphous dielectrics for tunnel barriers.
Engineering, control and longitudinal readout of Floquet qubits
Properties of time-periodic Hamiltonians can be exploited to increase the dephasing time of qubits and to design protected one and two-qubit gates. Recently, Huang et al. [Phys. Rev.
Applied 15, 034065 (2021)] have shown that time-dependent Floquet states offer a manifold of working points with dynamical protection larger than the few usual static sweet spots. Here, we use the framework of many-mode Floquet theory to describe approaches to robustly control Floquet qubits in the presence of multiple drive tones. Following the same approach, we introduce a longitudinal readout protocol to measure the Floquet qubit without the need of first adiabatically mapping back the Floquet states to the static qubit states, which results in a significant speedup in the measurement time of the Floquet qubit. The analytical approach developed here can be applied to any Hamiltonian involving a small number of distinct drive tones, typically the study of standard parametric gates for qubits outside of the rotating-wave approximation.
Spectator Errors in Tunable Coupling Architectures
The addition of tunable couplers to superconducting quantum architectures offers significant advantages for scaling compared to fixed coupling approaches. In principle, tunable couplers
allow for exact cancellation of qubit-qubit coupling through the interference of two parallel coupling pathways between qubits. However, stray microwave couplings can introduce additional pathways which complicate the interference effect. Here we investigate the primary spectator induced errors of the bus below qubit (BBQ) architecture in a six qubit device. We identify the key design parameters which inhibit ideal cancellation and demonstrate that dynamic cancellation pulses can further mitigate spectator errors.
24
Aug
2021
A near-ideal degenerate parametric amplifier
Degenerate parametric amplifiers (DPAs) exhibit the unique property of phase-sensitive gain and can be used to noiselessly amplify small signals or squeeze field fluctuations beneath
the vacuum level. In the microwave domain, these amplifiers have been utilized to measure qubits in elementary quantum processors, search for dark matter, facilitate high-sensitivity spin resonance spectroscopy and have even been proposed as the building blocks for a measurement based quantum computer. Until now, microwave DPAs have almost exclusively been made from nonlinear Josephson junctions, which exhibit high-order nonlinearities that limit their dynamic range and squeezing potential. In this work we investigate a new microwave DPA that exploits a nonlinearity engineered from kinetic inductance. The device has a simple design and displays a dynamic range that is four orders of magnitude greater than state-of-the-art Josephson DPAs. We measure phase sensitive gains up to 50 dB and demonstrate a near-quantum-limited noise performance. Additionally, we show that the higher-order nonlinearities that limit other microwave DPAs are almost non-existent for this amplifier, which allows us to demonstrate its exceptional squeezing potential by measuring the deamplification of coherent states by as much as 26 dB.
23
Aug
2021
Discovery of Nb hydride precipitates in superconducting qubits
We report the first evidence of the formation of niobium hydrides within niobium films on silicon substrates in superconducting qubits fabricated at Rigetti Computing. We combine complementary
techniques including room and cryogenic temperature atomic scale high-resolution and scanning transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM and STEM), atomic force microscopy (AFM), and the time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectroscopy (TOF-SIMS) to reveal the existence of the niobium hydride precipitates directly in the Rigetti chip areas. Electron diffraction and high-resolution transmission electron microscopy (HR-TEM) analyses are performed at room and cryogenic temperatures (~106 K) on superconducting qubit niobium film areas, and reveal the formation of three types of Nb hydride domains with different crystalline orientations and atomic structures. There is also variation in their size and morphology from small (~5 nm) irregular shape domains within the Nb grains to large (~10-100 nm) Nb grains fully converted to niobium hydride. As niobium hydrides are non-superconducting and can easily change in size and location upon different cooldowns to cryogenic temperatures, our findings highlight a new previously unknown source of decoherence in superconducting qubits, contributing to both quasiparticle and two-level system (TLS) losses, and offering a potential explanation for qubit performance changes upon cooldowns. A pathway to mitigate the formation of the Nb hydrides for superconducting qubit applications is also discussed.
High-fidelity iToffoli gate for fixed-frequency superconducting qubits
The development of noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices has extended the scope of executable quantum circuits with high-fidelity single- and two-qubit gates. Equipping NISQ
devices with three-qubit gates will enable the realization of more complex quantum algorithms and efficient quantum error correction protocols with reduced circuit depth. Several three-qubit gates have been implemented for superconducting qubits, but their use in gate synthesis has been limited due to their low fidelity. Here, using fixed-frequency superconducting qubits, we demonstrate a high-fidelity iToffoli gate based on two-qubit interactions, the so-called cross-resonance effect. As with the Toffoli gate, this three-qubit gate can be used to perform universal quantum computation. The iToffoli gate is implemented by simultaneously applying microwave pulses to a linear chain of three qubits, revealing a process fidelity as high as 98.26(2)%. Moreover, we numerically show that our gate scheme can produce additional three-qubit gates which provide more efficient gate synthesis than the Toffoli and Toffoli gates. Our work not only brings a high-fidelity iToffoli gate to current superconducting quantum processors but also opens a pathway for developing multi-qubit gates based on two-qubit interactions.
10
Aug
2021
Suppression of crosstalk in superconducting qubits using dynamical decoupling
Currently available superconducting quantum processors with interconnected transmon qubits are noisy and prone to various errors. The errors can be attributed to sources such as open
quantum system effects and spurious inter-qubit couplings (crosstalk). The ZZ-coupling between qubits in fixed frequency transmon architectures is always present and contributes to both coherent and incoherent crosstalk errors. Its suppression is therefore a key step towards enhancing the fidelity of quantum computation using transmons. Here we propose the use of dynamical decoupling to suppress the crosstalk, and demonstrate the success of this scheme through experiments performed on several IBM quantum cloud processors. We perform open quantum system simulations of the multi-qubit processors and find good agreement with all the experimental results. We analyze the performance of the protocol based on a simple analytical model and elucidate the importance of the qubit drive frequency in interpreting the results. In particular, we demonstrate that the XY4 dynamical decoupling sequence loses its universality if the drive frequency is not much larger than the system-bath coupling strength. Our work demonstrates that dynamical decoupling is an effective and practical way to suppress crosstalk and open system effects, thus paving the way towards high-fidelity logic gates in transmon-based quantum computers.
09
Aug
2021
Optimal charging of a superconducting quantum battery
Quantum batteries are miniature energy storage devices and play a very important role in quantum thermodynamics. In recent years, quantum batteries have been extensively studied, but
limited in theoretical level. Here we report the experimental realization of a quantum battery based on superconducting qubits. Our model explores dark and bright states to achieve stable and powerful charging processes, respectively. Our scheme makes use of the quantum adiabatic brachistochrone, which allows us to speed up the {battery ergotropy injection. Due to the inherent interaction of the system with its surrounding, the battery exhibits a self-discharge, which is shown to be described by a supercapacitor-like self-discharging mechanism. Our results paves the way for proposals of new superconducting circuits able to store extractable work for further usage.
Realization of 0 – π states in SFIS Josephson junctions. The role of spin-orbit interaction and lattice impurities
Josephson devices with ferromagnetic barriers have been widely studied. Much less is known when the ferromagnetic layer is insulating. In this manuscript we investigate the transport
properties of superconductor- ferromagnetic insulator-superconductor (SFIS) junctions with particular attention to the temperature behavior of the critical current, that may be used as a fingerprint of the junction. We investigate the specific role of impurities as well as of possible spin mixing mechanisms, due to the spin orbit coupling. Transition between the 0 and the {\pi} phases can be properly tuned, thus achieving stable {\pi} junctions over the whole temperature range, that may be possibly employed in superconducting quantum circuits