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
15
Jun
2022
Demonstrating two-qubit entangling gates at the quantum speed limit using superconducting qubits
The speed of elementary quantum gates, particularly two-qubit entangling gates, ultimately sets the limit on the speed at which quantum circuits can operate. In this work, we demonstrate
experimentally two-qubit entangling gates at nearly the fastest possible speed allowed by the physical interaction strength between two superconducting transmon qubits. We achieve this quantum speed limit by implementing experimental gates designed using a machine learning inspired optimal control method. Importantly, our method only requires the single-qubit drive strength to be moderately larger than the interaction strength to achieve an arbitrary entangling gate close to its analytical speed limit with high fidelity. Thus, the method is applicable to a variety of platforms including those with comparable single-qubit and two-qubit gate speeds, or those with always-on interactions.
13
Jun
2022
Microwave-activated gates between a fluxonium and a transmon qubit
We propose and analyze two types of microwave-activated gates between a fluxonium and a transmon qubit, namely a cross-resonance (CR) and a CPHASE gate. The large frequency difference
between a transmon and a fluxonium makes the realization of a two-qubit gate challenging. For a medium-frequency fluxonium qubit, the transmon-fluxonium system allows for a cross-resonance effect mediated by the higher levels of the fluxonium over a wide range of transmon frequencies. This allows one to realize the cross-resonance gate by driving the fluxonium at the transmon frequency, mitigating typical problems of the cross-resonance gate in transmon-transmon chips related to frequency targeting and residual ZZ coupling. However, when the fundamental frequency of the fluxonium enters the low-frequency regime below 100 MHz, the cross-resonance effect decreases leading to long gate times. For this range of parameters, a fast microwave CPHASE gate can be implemented using the higher levels of the fluxonium. In both cases, we perform numerical simulations of the gate showing that a gate fidelity above 99% can be obtained with gate times between 100 and 300 ns. Next to a detailed gate analysis, we perform a study of chip yield for a surface code lattice of fluxonia and transmons interacting via the proposed cross-resonance gate. We find a much better yield as compared to a transmon-only architecture with the cross-resonance gate as native two-qubit gate.
Quantum behavior of a superconducting Duffing oscillator at the dissipative phase transition
Understanding the non-deterministic behavior of deterministic nonlinear systems has been an implicit dream since Lorenz named it the „butterfly effect“. A prominent example
is the hysteresis and bistability of the Duffing oscillator, which in the classical description is attributed to the coexistence of two steady states in a double-well potential. However, this interpretation fails in the quantum-mechanical perspective, where a single unique steady state is allowed in the whole parameter space. Here, we measure the non-equilibrium dynamics of a superconducting Duffing oscillator and reconcile the classical and quantum descriptions in a unified picture of quantum metastability. We demonstrate that the two classically regarded steady states are in fact metastable states. They have a remarkably long lifetime in the classical hysteresis regime but must eventually relax into a single unique steady state allowed by quantum mechanics. By engineering the lifetime of the metastable states sufficiently large, we observe a first-order dissipative phase transition, which mimics a sudden change of the mean field in a 11-site Bose-Hubbard lattice. We also reveal the two distinct phases of the transition by quantum state tomography, namely a coherent-state phase and a squeezed-state phase separated by a critical point. Our results reveal a smooth quantum state evolution behind a sudden dissipative phase transition, and they form an essential step towards understanding hysteresis and instability in non-equilibrium systems.
08
Jun
2022
Spurious microwave crosstalk in floating superconducting circuits
Crosstalk is a major concern in the implementation of large-scale quantum computation since it can degrade the performance of qubit addressing and cause gate errors. Finding the origin
of crosstalk and separating contributions from different channels are essential prerequisites for figuring out crosstalk mitigation schemes. Here, by performing circuit analysis of two coupled floating transmon qubits, we demonstrate that, even if the stray coupling, e.g., between a qubit and the drive line of its nearby qubit, is absent, microwave crosstalk between qubits can still exist due to the presence of a spurious crosstalk channel. This channel arises from free modes, which are supported by the floating structure of transmon qubits, i.e., the two superconducting islands of the qubits have no galvanic connection to the ground. For various geometric layouts of floating transmon qubits, we give the contributions of microwave crosstalk from the spurious channel and show that this channel can become a performance-limiting factor in qubit addressing. This research could provide guidance for suppressing microwave crosstalk between floating superconducting qubits through the design of qubit circuits.
07
Jun
2022
Effects of Laser-Annealing on Fixed-Frequency Superconducting Qubits
As superconducting quantum processors increase in complexity, techniques to overcome constraints on frequency crowding are needed. The recently developed method of laser-annealing provides
an effective post-fabrication method to adjust the frequency of superconducting qubits. Here, we present an automated laser-annealing apparatus based on conventional microscopy components and demonstrate preservation of highly coherent transmons. In one case, we observe a two-fold increase in coherence after laser-annealing and perform noise spectroscopy on this qubit to investigate the change in defect features, in particular two-level system defects. Finally, we present a local heating model as well as demonstrate aging stability for laser-annealing on the wafer scale. Our work constitutes an important first step towards both understanding the underlying physical mechanism and scaling up laser-annealing of superconducting qubits.
01
Jun
2022
A hybrid ferromagnetic transmon qubit: circuit design, feasibility and detection protocols for magnetic fluctuations
We propose to exploit currently available tunnel ferromagnetic Josephson junctions to realize a hybrid superconducting qubit. We show that the characteristic hysteretic behavior of
the ferromagnetic barrier provides an alternative and intrinsically digital tuning of the qubit frequency by means of magnetic field pulses. To illustrate functionalities and limitation of the device, we discuss the coupling to a read-out resonator and the effect of magnetic fluctuations. The possibility to use the qubit as a noise detector and its relevance to investigate the subtle interplay of magnetism and superconductivity is envisaged.
31
Mai
2022
Cavity-based reservoir engineering for Floquet engineered superconducting circuits
By periodically driving a quantum system at a high frequency, it can acquire novel properties that are captured by an effective time-independent Hamiltonian. An important application
of such Floquet engineering is, e.g., the realization of effective gauge fields for charge-neutral particles. Here we consider driven Bose-Hubbard systems, as they can be realized as arrays of artificial atoms in superconducting circuits, and show that the ground state of the effective Hamiltonian can be prepared with high fidelity using reservoir engineering. For this purpose, some artificial atoms are coupled to driven leaky cavities. We derive an effective description of the open system by employing degenerate perturbation theory in the extended Floquet space with respect to both the periodic drive and the system-cavity coupling. Applying this theory to different Floquet-engineered flux ladders, we find both that it allows to cool the systems and that it shows excellent agreement with the full driven-dissipative evolution of system and cavities.
30
Mai
2022
Measurement and control of a superconducting quantum processor with a fully-integrated radio-frequency system on a chip
We describe a digital microwave platform called Presto, designed for measurement and control of multiple quantum bits (qubits) and based on the third-generation radio-frequency system
on a chip. Presto uses direct digital synthesis to create signals up to 9 GHz on 16 synchronous output ports, while synchronously analyzing response on 16 input ports. Presto has 16 DC-bias outputs, 4 inputs and 4 outputs for digital triggers or markers, and two continuous-wave outputs for synthesizing frequencies up to 15 GHz. Scaling to a large number of qubits is enabled through deterministic synchronization of multiple Presto units. A Python application programming interface configures a firmware for synthesis and analysis of pulses, coordinated by an event sequencer. The analysis integrates template matching (matched filtering) and low-latency (184 – 254 ns) feedback to enable a wide range of multi-qubit experiments. We demonstrate Presto’s capabilities with experiments on a sample consisting of two superconducting qubits connected via a flux-tunable coupler. We show single-shot readout and active reset of a single qubit; randomized benchmarking of single-qubit gates showing 99.972% fidelity, limited by the coherence time of the qubit; and calibration of a two-qubit iSWAP gate.
28
Mai
2022
Quantum electrodynamics of non-demolition detection of single microwave photon by superconducting qubit array
By consistently applying the formalism of quantum electrodynamics we developed a comprehensive theoretical framework describing the interaction of single microwave photons with an array
of superconducting transmon qubits in a wave guide cavity resonator. In particular, we analyze the effects of microwave photons on the arrays response to a weak probe signal exciting the resonator. The study reveals that a high quality factor cavities provide better spectral resolution of the response, while cavities with moderate quality factor allow better sensitivity for a single photon detection. Remarkably, our analysis showed that a single-photon signal can be detected by even a sole qubit in cavity under the realistic range of system parameters. We also discuss how quantum properties of the photons and electrodynamical properties of resonators affect the response of qubits array. Our results provide an efficient theoretical background for informing the development and design of quantum devices consisting of arrays of qubits.
27
Mai
2022
Radiative Properties of an Artificial Atom coupled to a Josephson Junction Array
We study the radiative properties — the Lamb shift, Purcell decay rate and the spontaneous emission dynamics — of an artificial atom coupled to a long, multimode cavity
formed by an array of Josephson junctions. Introducing a tunable coupling element between the atom and the array, we demonstrate that such a system can exhibit a crossover from a perturbative to non-perturbative regime of light-matter interaction as one strengthens the coupling between the atom and the Josephson junction array (JJA). As a consequence, the concept of spontaneous emission as the occupation of the local atomic site being governed by a single complex-valued exponent breaks down. This breakdown, we show, can be interpreted in terms of formation of hybrid atom-resonator modes with radiative losses that are non-trivially related to the effective coupling between individual modes. We develop a singular function expansion approach for the description of the open quantum system dynamics in such a multimode non-perturbative regime. This modal framework generalizes the normal mode description of quantum fields in a finite volume, incorporating exact radiative losses and incident quantum noise at the delimiting surface. Our results are pertinent to recent experiments with Josephson atoms coupled to high impedance Josephson junction arrays.