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
13
Mä
2022
Entanglement-interference complementarity and experimental demonstration in a superconducting circuit
Quantum entanglement between an interfering particle and a detector for acquiring the which-path information plays a central role for enforcing Bohr’s complementary principle,
but the quantitative relation between this entanglement and the fringe visibility remains untouched upon. Here we find an equality for quantifying this relation. Our equality characterizes how well the interference pattern can be preserved when an interfering particle, initially carrying a definite amount of coherence, is entangled with a which-path detector to a certain degree. This equality provides a connection between entanglement and interference in the unified framework of coherence, revealing the quantitative entanglement-interference complementarity for the first time. We experimentally demonstrate this relation with a superconducting circuit, where a resonator serves as a which-path detector for an interfering qubit. The results demonstrate quantum entanglement is the mechanism for prohibiting any detector from acquiring which-path information without deteriorating the interference pattern, which was not confirmed previously.
11
Mä
2022
Unimon qubit
Superconducting qubits are one of the most promising candidates to implement quantum computers. The superiority of superconducting quantum computers over any classical device in simulating
random but well-determined quantum circuits has already been shown in two independent experiments and important steps have been taken in quantum error correction. However, the currently wide-spread qubit designs do not yet provide high enough performance to enable practical applications or efficient scaling of logical qubits owing to one or several following issues: sensitivity to charge or flux noise leading to decoherence, too weak non-linearity preventing fast operations, undesirably dense excitation spectrum, or complicated design vulnerable to parasitic capacitance. Here, we introduce and demonstrate a superconducting-qubit type, the unimon, which combines the desired properties of high non-linearity, full insensitivity to dc charge noise, insensitivity to flux noise, and a simple structure consisting only of a single Josephson junction in a resonator. We measure the qubit frequency, ω01/(2π), and anharmonicity α over the full dc-flux range and observe, in agreement with our quantum models, that the qubit anharmonicity is greatly enhanced at the optimal operation point, yielding, for example, 99.9% and 99.8% fidelity for 13-ns single-qubit gates on two qubits with (ω01,α)=(4.49 GHz,434 MHz)×2π and (3.55 GHz,744 MHz)×2π, respectively. The energy relaxation time T1≲10 μs is stable for hours and seems to be limited by dielectric losses. Thus, future improvements of the design, materials, and gate time may promote the unimon to break the 99.99% fidelity target for efficient quantum error correction and possible quantum advantage with noisy systems.
Algebraic canonical quantization of lumped superconducting networks
We present a systematic canonical quantization procedure for lumped-element superconducting networks by making use of a redundant configuration-space description. The algorithm is based
on an original, explicit, and constructive implementation of the symplectic diagonalization of positive semidefinite Hamiltonian matrices, a particular instance of Williamson’s theorem. With it, we derive canonically quantized discrete-variable descriptions of passive causal systems. We exemplify the algorithm with representative {\it singular} electrical networks, a nonreciprocal extension for the black-box quantization method, as well as an archetypal Landau quantization problem.
Quantum Coherence in Loopless Superconductive Networks
Measurements indicating that planar networks of superconductive islands connected by Josephson junctions display long range quantum coherence are reported. The networks consist of superconducting
islands connected by Josephson junctions and have a tree-like topological structure containing no loops. Enhancements of superconductive gap over specific branches of the networks and sharp increases of pair currents are the main signatures of the coherent states and, in order to unambiguously attribute the observed effects to branches being embedded in the networks, comparisons with geometrically equivalent, but isolated, counterparts are reported. Tuning the Josephson coupling energy by an external magnetic field generates increases of the Josephson currents, along the above mentioned specific branches, which follow a functional dependence typical of phase transitions. Results are presented for double comb and star geometry networks and in both cases the observed effects provide positive quantitative evidence of the predictions of existing theoretical models.
10
Mä
2022
Probing the Jaynes-Cummings ladder with spin circuit quantum electrodynamics
Circuit quantum electrodynamics with electron spins (spin circuit QED) enables long-range interaction and single-shot readout of spin qubits, which pave the way to large-scale spin
qubit processors. Recent experimental work reported an additional feature in the vacuum Rabi splitting of peaks in the resonator transmission spectrum, which has remained unexplained until now. In this work, we show that this feature originates from transitions between excited states in the Jaynes-Cummings ladder, which are not included in commonly used input-output models for spin circuit QED. We present an input-output framework that does include these effects and is based on a numerical solution of a Lindblad master equation in the stationary limit. In new experiments, we first reproduce previous observations and then reveal both excited-state transitions and multi-photon transitions by increasing the probe power and using two-tone spectroscopy. This ability to probe the Jaynes-Cummings ladder in spin circuit QED is an important new step in the development of the platform. In future work, our input-output framework can be straightforwardly extended to accurately describe resonator-mediated interactions between two remote spins.
08
Mä
2022
Weakly Flux-Tunable Superconducting Qubit
Flux-tunable qubits are a useful resource for superconducting quantum processors. They can be used to perform cPhase gates, facilitate fast reset protocols, avoid qubit-frequency collisions
in large processors, and enable certain fast readout schemes. However, flux-tunable qubits suffer from a trade-off between their tunability range and sensitivity to flux noise. Optimizing this trade-off is particularly important for enabling fast, high-fidelity, all-microwave cross-resonance gates in large, high-coherence processors. This is mainly because cross-resonance gates set stringent conditions on the frequency landscape of neighboring qubits, which are difficult to satisfy with non-tunable transmons due to their relatively large fabrication imprecision. To solve this problem, we realize a coherent, flux-tunable, transmon-like qubit, which exhibits a frequency tunability range as small as 43 MHz, and whose frequency, anharmonicity and tunability range are set by a few experimentally achievable design parameters. Such a weakly tunable qubit is useful for avoiding frequency collisions in a large lattice while limiting its susceptibility to flux noise.
Entangling transmons with low-frequency protected superconducting qubits
Novel qubits with intrinsic noise protection constitute a promising route for improving the coherence of quantum information in superconducting circuits. However, many protected superconducting
qubits exhibit relatively low transition frequencies, which could make their integration with conventional transmon circuits challenging. In this work, we propose and study a scheme for entangling a tunable transmon with a Cooper-pair parity-protected qubit, a paradigmatic example of a low-frequency protected qubit that stores quantum information in opposite Cooper-pair parity states on a superconducting island. By tuning the external flux on the transmon, we show that non-computational states can mediate a two-qubit entangling gate that preserves the Cooper-pair parity independent of the detailed pulse sequence. Interestingly, the entangling gate bears similarities to a controlled-phase gate in conventional transmon devices. Hence, our results suggest that standard high-precision gate calibration protocols could be repurposed for operating hybrid qubit devices.
Weakly Flux-Tunable Superconducting Qubit
Flux-tunable qubits are a useful resource for superconducting quantum processors. They can be used to perform cPhase gates, facilitate fast reset protocols, avoid qubit-frequency collisions
in large processors, and enable certain fast readout schemes. However, flux-tunable qubits suffer from a trade-off between their tunability range and sensitivity to flux noise. Optimizing this trade-off is particularly important for enabling fast, high-fidelity, all-microwave cross-resonance gates in large, high-coherence processors. This is mainly because cross-resonance gates set stringent conditions on the frequency landscape of neighboring qubits, which are difficult to satisfy with non-tunable transmons due to their relatively large fabrication imprecision. To solve this problem, we realize a coherent, flux-tunable, transmon-like qubit, which exhibits a frequency tunability range as small as 43 MHz, and whose frequency, anharmonicity and tunability range are set by a few experimentally achievable design parameters. Such a weakly tunable qubit is useful for avoiding frequency collisions in a large lattice while limiting its susceptibility to flux noise.
04
Mä
2022
The transition regime between traveling-wave and resonant parametric amplifier
Traveling wave parametric amplifiers based on kinetic or Josephson nonlinear inductance are known to be microwave quantum limited amplifiers. Usually, a perfectly impedance-matched
model is used to describe their characteristics in terms of standard coupled mode theory. In practice, the amplifiers are unmatched nonlinear devices with finite length, exhibiting ripples in the transmission. Since commonly used models fail to describe the ripples of real parametric amplifiers, here we are introducing a theoretical approach with non-negligible reflections, which provides their gain and bandwidth properly for both 3-wave and 4-wave mixing. Predictions of the model are experimentally demonstrated on two types of TWPA, based on coplanar waveguides with a central wire consisting of i) high kinetic inductance superconductor, and ii) array of 2000 Josephson junctions.
03
Mä
2022
Generation of control signals using second-Nyquist zone technique for superconducting qubit devices
There is growing interest in developing integrated room temperature control electronics for the control and measurement of superconducting devices for quantum computing applications.
With the availability of faster DACs, it has become possible to generate microwave signals with amplitude and phase controls directly without requiring any analog mixer. In this report, we use the evaluation kit ZCU111 to generate vector microwave pulses using the second-Nyquist zone technique. We characterize the performance of the signal generation and measure amplitude variation across second Nyquist zone, single-sideband phase noise, and spurious-free dynamic range. We further perform various time-domain measurements to characterize a superconducting transmon qubit and benchmark our results against traditionally used analog mixer setups.