Quasiparticle dynamics in a superconducting qubit irradiated by a localized infrared source

  1. Rodrigo Benevides,
  2. Maxwell Drimmer,
  3. Giacomo Bisson,
  4. Francesco Adinolfi,
  5. Uwe von Lüpke,
  6. Hugo Michiel Doeleman,
  7. Gianluigi Catelani,
  8. and Yiwen Chu
A known source of decoherence in superconducting qubits is the presence of broken Cooper pairs, or quasiparticles. These can be generated by high-energy radiation, either present in the environment or purposefully introduced, as in the case of some hybrid quantum devices. Here, we systematically study the properties of a transmon qubit under illumination by focused infrared radiation with various powers, durations, and spatial locations. Despite the high energy of incident photons, our observations agree well with a model of low-energy quasiparticle dynamics dominated by trapping. This technique can be used for understanding and potentially mitigating the effects of high-energy radiation on superconducting circuits with a variety of geometries and materials.
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