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
Aug
2021
Josephson-based scheme for the detection of microwave photons
We propose a scheme for the detection of microwave induced photons through current-biased Josephson junction, from the point of view of the statistical decision theory. Our analysis
is based on the numerical study of the zero voltage lifetime distribution in response to a periodic train of pulses, that mimics the absorption of photons. The statistical properties of the detection are retrieved comparing the thermally induced transitions with the distribution of the switchings to the finite voltage state due to the joint action of thermal noise and of the incident pulses. The capability to discriminate the photon arrival can be quantified through the Kumar-Caroll index, which is a good indicator of the Signal-to-Noise-Ratio. The index can be exploited to identify the system parameters best suited for the detection of weak microwave photons.
Realizing discrete time crystal in an one-dimensional superconducting qubit chain
Floquet engineering, i.e. driving the system with periodic Hamiltonians, not only provides great flexibility in analog quantum simulation, but also supports phase structures of great
richness. It has been proposed that Floquet systems can support a discrete time-translation symmetry (TTS) broken phase, dubbed the discrete time crystal (DTC). This proposal, as well as the exotic phase, has attracted tremendous interest among the community of quantum simulation. Here we report the observation of the DTC in an one-dimensional superconducting qubit chain. We experimentally realize long-time stroboscopic quantum dynamics of a periodically driven spin system consisting of 8 transmon qubits, and obtain a lifetime of the DTC order limited by the coherence time of the underlying physical platform. We also explore the crossover between the discrete TTS broken and unbroken phases via various physical signatures. Our work extends the usage of superconducting circuit systems in quantum simulation of many-body physics, and provides an experimental tool for investigating non-equilibrium dynamics and phase structures.
28
Jul
2021
Ultrastrong tunable coupler between superconducting LC resonators
We investigate the ultrastrong tunable coupler for coupling of superconducting resonators. Obtained coupling constant exceeds 1 GHz, and the wide range tunability is achieved both antiferromagnetics
and ferromagnetics from -1086 MHz to 604 MHz. Ultrastrong coupler is composed of rf-SQUID and dc-SQUID as tunable junctions, which connected to resonators via shared aluminum thin film meander lines enabling such a huge coupling constant. The spectrum of the coupler obviously shows the breaking of the rotating wave approximation, and our circuit model treating the Josephson junction as a tunable inductance reproduces the experimental results well. The ultrastrong coupler is expected to be utilized in quantum annealing circuits and/or NISQ devices with dense connections between qubits.
Trade off-Free Entanglement Stabilization in a Superconducting Qutrit-Qubit System
Quantum reservoir engineering is a powerful framework for autonomous quantum state preparation and error correction. However, traditional approaches to reservoir engineering are hindered
by unavoidable coherent leakage out of the target state, which imposes an inherent trade off between achievable steady-state state fidelity and stabilization rate. In this work we demonstrate a protocol that achieves trade off-free Bell state stabilization in a qutrit-qubit system realized on a circuit-QED platform. We accomplish this by creating a purely dissipative channel for population transfer into the target state, mediated by strong parametric interactions coupling the second-excited state of a superconducting transmon and the engineered bath resonator. Our scheme achieves a state preparation fidelity of 84% with a stabilization time constant of 339 ns, leading to the lowest error-time product reported in solid-state quantum information platforms to date.
27
Jul
2021
Perspective on traveling wave microwave parametric amplifiers
Quantum-limited microwave parametric amplifiers are genuine key pillars for rising quantum technologies and in general for applications that rely on the successful readout of weak microwave
signals by adding only the minimum amount of noise allowed by quantum mechanics. In this perspective, after providing a brief overview on the different families of parametric microwave amplifiers, we focus on traveling wave parametric amplifiers (TWPAs), underlining the key achievements of the last years and the present open challenges. We discuss also possible new research directions beyond amplification such as exploring these devices as a platform for multi-mode entanglement generation and for the development of single photon detectors.
Nonequilibrium heat transport and work with a single artificial atom coupled to a waveguide: emission without external driving
We observe the continuous emission of photons into a waveguide from a superconducting qubit without the application of an external drive. To explain this observation, we build a two-bath
model where the qubit couples simultaneously to a cold bath (the waveguide) and a hot bath (a secondary environment). Our results show that the thermal-photon occupation of the hot bath is up to 0.14 photons, 35 times larger than the cold waveguide, leading to nonequilibrium heat transport with a power of up to 132 zW, as estimated from the qubit emission spectrum. By adding more isolation between the sample output and the first cold amplifier in the output line, the heat transport is strongly suppressed. Our interpretation is that the hot bath may arise from active two-level systems being excited by noise from the output line. We also apply a coherent drive, and use the waveguide to measure thermodynamic work and heat, suggesting waveguide spectroscopy is a useful means to study quantum heat engines and refrigerators. Finally, based on the theoretical model, we propose how a similar setup can be used as a noise spectrometer which provides a new solution for calibrating the background noise of hybrid quantum systems.
24
Jul
2021
Tunable coupling scheme for implementing two-qubit gates on fluxonium qubits
The superconducting fluxonium circuit is an RF-SQUID-type flux qubit that uses a large inductance built from an array of Josephson junctions or a high kinetic inductance material. This
inductance suppresses charge sensitivity exponentially and flux sensitivity quadratically. In contrast to the transmon qubit, the anharmonicity of fluxonium can be large and positive, allowing for better separation between the low energy qubit manifold of the circuit and higher-lying excited states. Here, we propose a tunable coupling scheme for implementing two-qubit gates on fixed-frequency fluxonium qubits, biased at half flux quantum. In this system, both qubits and coupler are coupled capacitively and implemented as fluxonium circuits with an additional harmonic mode. We investigate the performance of the scheme by simulating a universal two-qubit fSim gate. In the proposed approach, we rely on a planar on-chip architecture for the whole device. Our design is compatible with existing hardware for transmon-based devices, with the additional advantage of lower qubit frequency facilitating high-precision gating.
23
Jul
2021
Experimental demonstration of continuous quantum error correction
The storage and processing of quantum information are susceptible to external noise, resulting in computational errors that are inherently continuous A powerful method to suppress these
effects is to use quantum error correction. Typically, quantum error correction is executed in discrete rounds where errors are digitized and detected by projective multi-qubit parity measurements. These stabilizer measurements are traditionally realized with entangling gates and projective measurement on ancillary qubits to complete a round of error correction. However, their gate structure makes them vulnerable to errors occurring at specific times in the code and errors on the ancilla qubits. Here we use direct parity measurements to implement a continuous quantum bit-flip correction code in a resource-efficient manner, eliminating entangling gates, ancilla qubits, and their associated errors. The continuous measurements are monitored by an FPGA controller that actively corrects errors as they are detected. Using this method, we achieve an average bit-flip detection efficiency of up to 91%. Furthermore, we use the protocol to increase the relaxation time of the protected logical qubit by a factor of 2.7 over the relaxation times of the bare comprising qubits. Our results showcase resource-efficient stabilizer measurements in a multi-qubit architecture and demonstrate how continuous error correction codes can address challenges in realizing a fault-tolerant system.
Robust strong coupling architecture in circuit quantum electrodynamics
We report on a robust method to achieve strong coupling between a superconducting flux qubit and a high-quality quarter-wavelength coplanar waveguide resonator. We demonstrate the progression
from the strong to ultrastrong coupling regime by varying the length of a shared inductive coupling element, ultimately achieving a qubit-resonator coupling strength of 655 MHz, 10% of the resonator frequency. We derive an analytical expression for the coupling strength in terms of circuit parameters and also discuss the maximum achievable coupling within this framework. We experimentally characterize flux qubits coupled to superconducting resonators using one and two-tone spectroscopy methods, demonstrating excellent agreement with the proposed theoretical model.
High Coherence in a Tileable 3D Integrated Superconducting Circuit Architecture
We report high qubit coherence as well as low crosstalk and single-qubit gate errors in a superconducting circuit architecture that promises to be tileable to 2D lattices of qubits.
The architecture integrates an inductively shunted cavity enclosure into a design featuring non-galvanic out-of-plane control wiring and qubits and resonators fabricated on opposing sides of a substrate. The proof-of-principle device features four uncoupled transmon qubits and exhibits average energy relaxation times T1=149(38) μs, pure echoed dephasing times Tϕ,e=189(34) μs, and single-qubit gate fidelities F=99.982(4)% as measured by simultaneous randomized benchmarking. The 3D integrated nature of the control wiring means that qubits will remain addressable as the architecture is tiled to form larger qubit lattices. Band structure simulations are used to predict that the tiled enclosure will still provide a clean electromagnetic environment to enclosed qubits at arbitrary scale.