Disordered superconducting materials provide a new capability to implement novel circuit designs due to their high kinetic inductance. Here, we realize a fluxonium qubit in which along NbTiN nanowire shunts a single Josephson junction. We explain the measured fluxonium energy spectrum with a nonperturbative theory accounting for the multimode structure of the device in a large frequency range. Making use of multiphoton Raman spectroscopy, we address forbidden fluxonium transitions and observe multilevel Autler-Townes splitting. Finally, we measure lifetimes of several excited states ranging from T1=620 ns to T1=20 μs, by applying consecutive π-pulses between multiple fluxonium levels. Our measurements demonstrate that NbTiN is a suitable material for novel superconducting qubit designs.
Superconducting circuits rank among the most interesting architectures for the implementation of quantum information processing devices. The recently proposed 0-π qubit [Brooks etal., Phys. Rev. A 87, 52306 (2013)] promises increased protection from spontaneous relaxation and dephasing. In practice, this ideal behavior is only realized if the parameter dispersion among nominally identical circuit elements vanishes. In this paper we present a theoretical study of the more realistic scenario of slight variations in circuit elements. We discuss how the coupling to a spurious, low-energy mode affects the coherence properties of the 0-π device, investigate the relevant decoherence channels, and present estimates for achievable coherence times in multiple parameter regimes.
Current state of the art quantum computing experiments in the microwave regime use control pulses generated by modulating microwave tones with baseband signals generated by an arbitrarywaveform generator (AWG). Recent advances in digital analog conversion technology have made it possible to directly synthesize arbitrary microwave pulses with sampling rates up to 92 gigasamples per second (GS/s). These new high bandwidth AWG’s could dramatically simplify the classical control chain for quantum computing experiments, enabling more advanced pulse shaping and reducing the number of components that need to be carefully calibrated. Here we use a high speed AWG to study the viability of such a simplified scheme. We characterize the AWG and perform randomized benchmarking of a superconducting qubit, achieving average single qubit gate error rates below 5×10−4.
Condensed matter physics has been driven forward by significant experimental and theoretical progress in the study and understanding of equilibrium phase transitions based on symmetryand topology. However, nonequilibrium phase transitions have remained a challenge, in part due to their complexity in theoretical descriptions and the additional experimental difficulties in systematically controlling systems out of equilibrium. Here, we study a one-dimensional chain of 72 microwave cavities, each coupled to a superconducting qubit, and coherently drive the system into a nonequilibrium steady state. We find experimental evidence for a dissipative phase transition in the system in which the steady state changes dramatically as the mean photon number is increased. Near the boundary between the two observed phases, the system demonstrates bistability, with characteristic switching times as long as 60 ms — far longer than any of the intrinsic rates known for the system. This experiment demonstrates the power of circuit QED systems for studying nonequilibrium condensed matter physics and paves the way for future experiments exploring nonequilbrium physics with many-body quantum optics.
Microwave photons inside lattices of coupled resonators and superconducting qubits can exhibit surprising matter-like behavior. Realizing such open-system quantum simulators presentsan experimental challenge and requires new tools and measurement techniques. Here, we introduce Scanning Defect Microscopy as one such tool and illustrate its use in mapping the normal-mode structure of microwave photons inside a 49-site Kagome lattice of coplanar waveguide resonators. Scanning is accomplished by moving a probe equipped with a sapphire tip across the lattice. This locally perturbs resonator frequencies and induces shifts of the lattice resonance frequencies which we determine by measuring the transmission spectrum. From the magnitude of mode shifts we can reconstruct photon field amplitudes at each lattice site and thus create spatial images of the photon-lattice normal modes.
We report high-fidelity, quantum nondemolition, single-shot readout of a superconducting transmon qubit using a DC-biased superconducting low-inductance undulatory galvanometer(SLUG)amplifier. The SLUG improves the system signal-to-noise ratio by 7 dB in a 20 MHz window compared with a bare HEMT amplifier. An optimal cavity drive pulse is chosen using a genetic search algorithm, leading to a maximum combined readout and preparation fidelity of 91.9% with a measurement time of Tmeas = 200ns. Using post-selection to remove preparation errors caused by heating, we realize a combined preparation and readout fidelity of 94.3%.
The intriguing appeal of circuits lies in their modularity and ease of
fabrication. Based on a toolbox of simple building blocks, circuits present a
powerful framework for achievingnew functionality by combining circuit
elements into larger networks. It is an open question to what degree modularity
also holds for quantum circuits — circuits made of superconducting material,
in which electric voltages and currents are governed by the laws of quantum
physics. If realizable, quantum coherence in larger circuit networks has great
potential for advances in quantum information processing including topological
protection from decoherence. Here, we present theory suitable for quantitative
modeling of such large circuits and discuss its application to the fluxonium
device. Our approach makes use of approximate symmetries exhibited by the
circuit, and enables us to obtain new predictions for the energy spectrum of
the fluxonium device which can be tested with current experimental technology.