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
Feb
2019
Detecting itinerant microwave photons with engineered non-linear dissipation
Single photon detection is a key resource for sensing at the quantum limit and the enabling technology for measurement based quantum computing. Photon detection at optical frequencies
relies on irreversible photo-assisted ionization of various natural materials. However, microwave photons have energies 5 orders of magnitude lower than optical photons, and are therefore ineffective at triggering measurable phenomena at macroscopic scales. Here, we report the observation of a new type of interaction between a single two level system (qubit) and a microwave resonator. These two quantum systems do not interact coherently, instead, they share a common dissipative mechanism to a cold bath: the qubit irreversibly switches to its excited state if and only if a photon enters the resonator. We have used this highly correlated dissipation mechanism to detect itinerant photons impinging on the resonator. This scheme does not require any prior knowledge of the photon waveform nor its arrival time, and dominant decoherence mechanisms do not trigger spurious detection events (dark counts). We demonstrate a detection efficiency of 58% and a record low dark count rate of 1.4 per ms. This work establishes engineered non-linear dissipation as a key-enabling resource for a new class of low-noise non-linear microwave detectors.
Circuit quantization in the presence of time-dependent external flux
Circuit quantization links a physical circuit to its corresponding quantum Hamiltonian. The standard quantization procedure generally assumes any external magnetic flux to be static.
Time dependence naturally arises, however, when flux is modulated or when flux noise is considered. In this case, application of the existing quantization procedure can lead to inconsistencies. To resolve these, we generalize circuit quantization to incorporate time-dependent external flux.
08
Feb
2019
Hybrid quantum systems based on magnonics
Engineered quantum systems enabling novel capabilities for communication, computation, and sensing have blossomed in the last decade. Architectures benefiting from combining distinct
and complementary physical quantum systems have emerged as promising platforms for developing quantum technologies. A new class of hybrid quantum systems based on collective spin excitations in ferromagnetic materials has led to the diverse set of experimental platforms which are outlined in this review article. More specifically, the coherent interaction between microwave cavity modes and collective spin-wave modes is presented as the backbone of the development of more complex hybrid quantum systems. Indeed, quanta of excitation of the spin-wave modes, called magnons, can also interact coherently with optical photons, phonons, and superconducting qubits in the fields of cavity optomagnonics, cavity magnomechanics, and quantum magnonics, respectively. Notably, quantum magnonics provides a promising platform for performing quantum optics experiments in magnetically-ordered solid-state systems. Applications of hybrid quantum systems based on magnonics for quantum information processing and quantum sensing are also outlined briefly.
Scalable Hardware-Efficient Qubit Control with Single Flux Quantum Pulse Sequences
The hardware overhead associated with microwave control is a major obstacle to scale-up of superconducting quantum computing. An alternative approach involves irradiation of the qubits
with trains of Single Flux Quantum (SFQ) pulses, pulses of voltage whose time integral is precisely equal to the superconducting flux quantum. Here we describe the derivation and validation of compact SFQ pulse sequences in which classical bits are clocked to the qubit at a frequency that is roughly a factor 5 higher than the qubit oscillation frequency, allowing for variable pulse-to-pulse timing. The control sequences are constructed by repeated streaming of short subsequence registers that are designed to suppress leakage out of the computational manifold. With a single global clock, high-fidelity (> 99.99%) control of qubits resonating at over 20 distinct frequencies is possible. SFQ pulses can be stored locally and delivered to the qubits via a proximal classical Josephson digital circuit, offering the possibility of a streamlined, low-footprint classical coprocessor for monitoring errors and feeding back to the qubit array.
07
Feb
2019
Line-Graph Lattices: Euclidean and Non-Euclidean Flat Bands, and Implementations in Circuit Quantum Electrodynamics
Materials science and the study of the electronic properties of solids are a major field of interest in both physics and engineering. The starting point for all such calculations is
single-electron, or non-interacting, band structure calculations, and in the limit of strong on-site confinement this can be reduced to graph-like tight-binding models. In this context, both mathematicians and physicists have developed largely independent methods for solving these models. In this paper we will combine and present results from both fields. In particular, we will discuss a class of lattices which can be realized as line graphs of other lattices, both in Euclidean and hyperbolic space. These lattices display highly unusual features including flat bands and localized eigenstates of compact support. We will use the methods of both fields to show how these properties arise and systems for classifying the phenomenology of these lattices, as well as criteria for maximizing the gaps. Furthermore, we will present a particular hardware implementation using superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators that can realize a wide variety of these lattices in both non-interacting and interacting form.
01
Feb
2019
Secure quantum remote state preparation of squeezed microwave states
Quantum communication protocols based on nonclassical correlations can be more efficient than known classical methods and offer intrinsic security over direct state transfer. In particular,
remote state preparation aims at the creation of a desired and known quantum state at a remote location using classical communication and quantum entanglement. We present an experimental realization of deterministic continuous-variable remote state preparation in the microwave regime over a distance of 35 cm. By employing propagating two-mode squeezed microwave states and feedforward, we achieve the remote preparation of squeezed states with up to 1.6 dB of squeezing below the vacuum level. We quantify security in our implementation using the concept of the one-time pad. Our results represent a significant step towards microwave quantum networks between superconducting circuits.
Superconducting quantum refrigerator: Breaking and rejoining Cooper pairs with magnetic field cycles
We propose a solid state refrigeration technique based on repeated adiabatic magnetization/demagnetization cycles of a superconductor which acts as the working substance. The gradual
cooling down of a substrate (normal metal) in contact with the working substance is demonstrated for different initial temperatures of the substrate. Excess heat is given to a hot large-gap superconductor. The on-chip refrigerator works in a cyclic manner because of an effective thermal switching mechanism: Heat transport between N/N versus N/S junctions is asymmetric because of the appearance of the energy gap. This switch permits selective cooling of the metal. We find that this refrigeration technique can cool down a 0.3cm3 block of Cu by almost two orders of magnitude starting from 200mK, and down to about 1mK starting from the base temperature of a dilution fridge (10mK). The corresponding cooling power for a 1cm×1cm interface are 25 nW and 0.06 nW respectively, which scales with the area of the interface.
23
Jan
2019
Quantum state tomography across the exceptional point in a single dissipative qubit
Open systems with gain and loss, described by non-Hermitian Hamiltonians, have been a subject of intense research recently. In classical systems, the effect of exceptional-point degeneracies
on their dynamics has been observed through remarkable phenomena such as the parity-time symmetry breaking transition, asymmetric mode switching, and optimal energy transfer. On the other hand, consequences of an exceptional point for quantum evolution and decoherence are hitherto unexplored. Here, we use post-selection on a three-level superconducting transmon circuit with tunable Rabi drive, dissipation, and detuning to carry out quantum state tomography of a single dissipative qubit in the vicinity of its exceptional point. Quantum state tomography reveals the PT symmetry breaking transition at zero detuning, decoherence enhancement at finite detuning, and a quantum signature of the exceptional point in the qubit relaxation state. Our observations demonstrate rich phenomena associated with non-Hermitian physics in the fully quantum regime and open routes to explore and harness exceptional point degeneracies for enhanced sensing and quantum information processing.
Demonstration of a Parametrically-Activated Entangling Gate Protected from Flux Noise
In state-of-the-art quantum computing platforms, including superconducting qubits and trapped ions, imperfections in the 2-qubit entangling gates are the dominant contributions of error
to system-wide performance. Recently, a novel 2-qubit parametric gate was proposed and demonstrated with superconducting transmon qubits. This gate is activated through RF modulation of the transmon frequency and can be operated at an amplitude where the performance is first-order insensitive to flux-noise. In this work we experimentally validate the existence of this AC sweet spot and demonstrate its dependence on white noise power from room temperature electronics. With these factors in place, we measure coherence-limited entangling-gate fidelities as high as 99.2 ± 0.15%.
Manufacturing low dissipation superconducting quantum processors
Enabling applications for solid state quantum technology will require systematically reducing noise, particularly dissipation, in these systems. Yet, when multiple decay channels are
present in a system with similar weight, resolution to distinguish relatively small changes is necessary to infer improvements to noise levels. For superconducting qubits, uncontrolled variation of nominal performance makes obtaining such resolution challenging. Here, we approach this problem by investigating specific combinations of previously reported fabrication techniques on the quality of 242 thin film superconducting resonators and qubits. Our results quantify the influence of elementary processes on dissipation at key interfaces. We report that an end-to-end optimization of the manufacturing process that integrates multiple small improvements together can produce an average T¯¯¯¯1=76±13 μs across 24 qubits with the best qubits having T1≥110 μs. Moreover, our analysis places bounds on energy decay rates for three fabrication-related loss channels present in state-of-the-art superconducting qubits. Understanding dissipation through such systematic analysis may pave the way for lower noise solid state quantum computers.