We have integrated single and coupled superconducting transmon qubits into flip-chip modules. Each module consists of two chips – one quantum chip and one control chip –that are bump-bonded together. We demonstrate time-averaged coherence times exceeding 90μs, single-qubit gate fidelities exceeding 99.9%, and two-qubit gate fidelities above 98.6%. We also present device design methods and discuss the sensitivity of device parameters to variation in interchip spacing. Notably, the additional flip-chip fabrication steps do not degrade the qubit performance compared to our baseline state-of-the-art in single-chip, planar circuits. This integration technique can be extended to the realisation of quantum processors accommodating hundreds of qubits in one module as it offers adequate input/output wiring access to all qubits and couplers.
Quantum transduction between the microwave and optical domains is an outstanding challenge for long-distance quantum networks based on superconducting qubits. For all transducers realizedto date, the generally weak light-matter coupling does not allow high transduction efficiency, large bandwidth, and low noise simultaneously. Here we show that a large electric dipole moment of an exciton in an optically active self-assembled quantum dot molecule (QDM) efficiently couples to a microwave field inside a superconducting resonator, allowing for efficient transduction between microwave and optical photons. Furthermore, every transduction event is heralded by a single-photon pulse generated at the QDM resonance, which can be used to generate entanglement between distant qubits. With an on-chip device, we demonstrate a sizeable single-photon coupling strength of 16 MHz. Thanks to the fast exciton decay rate in the QDM, the transduction bandwidth reaches several 100s of MHz.
Quantum computing crucially relies on the ability to efficiently characterize the quantum states output by quantum hardware. Conventional methods which probe these states through directmeasurements and classically computed correlations become computationally expensive when increasing the system size. Quantum neural networks tailored to recognize specific features of quantum states by combining unitary operations, measurements and feedforward promise to require fewer measurements and to tolerate errors. Here, we realize a quantum convolutional neural network (QCNN) on a 7-qubit superconducting quantum processor to identify symmetry-protected topological (SPT) phases of a spin model characterized by a non-zero string order parameter. We benchmark the performance of the QCNN based on approximate ground states of a family of cluster-Ising Hamiltonians which we prepare using a hardware-efficient, low-depth state preparation circuit. We find that, despite being composed of finite-fidelity gates itself, the QCNN recognizes the topological phase with higher fidelity than direct measurements of the string order parameter for the prepared states.
Deterministic photon-photon gates enable the controlled generation of entanglement between mobile carriers of quantum information. Such gates have thus far been exclusively realizedin the optical domain and by relying on post-selection. Here, we present a non-post-selected, deterministic, photon-photon gate in the microwave frequency range realized using superconducting circuits. We emit photonic qubits from a source chip and route those qubits to a gate chip with which we realize a universal gate set by combining controlled absorption and re-emission with single-qubit gates and qubit-photon controlled-phase gates. We measure quantum process fidelities of 75% for single- and of 57% for two-qubit gates, limited mainly by radiation loss and decoherence. This universal gate set has a wide range of potential applications in superconducting quantum networks.
Superconducting circuits are a strong contender for realizing quantum computing systems, and are also successfully used to study quantum optics and hybrid quantum systems. However,their cryogenic operation temperatures and the current lack of coherence-preserving microwave-to-optical conversion solutions have hindered the realization of superconducting quantum networks either spanning different cryogenics systems or larger distances. Here, we report the successful operation of a cryogenic waveguide coherently linking transmon qubits located in two dilution refrigerators separated by a physical distance of five meters. We transfer qubit states and generate entanglement on-demand with average transfer and target state fidelities of 85.8 % and 79.5 %, respectively, between the two nodes of this elementary network. Cryogenic microwave links do provide an opportunity to scale up systems for quantum computing and create local area quantum communication networks over length scales of at least tens of meters.
High fidelity two-qubit gates exhibiting low crosstalk are essential building blocks for gate-based quantum information processing. In superconducting circuits two-qubit gates are typicallybased either on RF-controlled interactions or on the in-situ tunability of qubit frequencies. Here, we present an alternative approach using a tunable cross-Kerr-type ZZ-interaction between two qubits, which we realize by a flux-tunable coupler element. We control the ZZ-coupling rate over three orders of magnitude to perform a rapid (38 ns), high-contrast, low leakage (0.14 %) conditional-phase CZ gate with a fidelity of 97.9 % without relying on the resonant interaction with a non-computational state. Furthermore, by exploiting the direct nature of the ZZ-coupling, we easily access the entire conditional-phase gate family by adjusting only a single control parameter.
Sources of entangled electromagnetic radiation are a cornerstone in quantum information processing and offer unique opportunities for the study of quantum many-body physics in a controlledexperimental setting. While multi-mode entangled states of radiation have been generated in various platforms, all previous experiments are either probabilistic or restricted to generate specific types of states with a moderate entanglement length. Here, we demonstrate the fully deterministic generation of purely photonic entangled states such as the cluster, GHZ, and W state by sequentially emitting microwave photons from a controlled auxiliary system into a waveguide. We tomographically reconstruct the entire quantum many-body state for up to N=4 photonic modes and infer the quantum state for even larger N from process tomography. We estimate that localizable entanglement persists over a distance of approximately ten photonic qubits, outperforming any previous deterministic scheme.
Variational quantum algorithms are believed to be promising for solving computationally hard problems and are often comprised of repeated layers of quantum gates. An example thereofis the quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA), an approach to solve combinatorial optimization problems on noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) systems. Gaining computational power from QAOA critically relies on the mitigation of errors during the execution of the algorithm, which for coherence-limited operations is achievable by reducing the gate count. Here, we demonstrate an improvement of up to a factor of 3 in algorithmic performance as measured by the success probability, by implementing a continuous hardware-efficient gate set using superconducting quantum circuits. This gate set allows us to perform the phase separation step in QAOA with a single physical gate for each pair of qubits instead of decomposing it into two CZ-gates and single-qubit gates. With this reduced number of physical gates, which scales with the number of layers employed in the algorithm, we experimentally investigate the circuit-depth-dependent performance of QAOA applied to exact-cover problem instances mapped onto three and seven qubits, using up to a total of 399 operations and up to 9 layers. Our results demonstrate that the use of continuous gate sets may be a key component in extending the impact of near-term quantum computers.
The ability to control and measure the temperature of propagating microwave modes down to very low temperatures is indispensable for quantum information processing, and may open opportunitiesfor studies of heat transport at the nanoscale, also in the quantum regime. Here we propose and experimentally demonstrate primary thermometry of propagating microwaves using a transmon-type superconducting circuit. Our device operates continuously, with a sensitivity down to 4×10−4 photons/Hz−−−√ and a bandwidth of 40 MHz. We measure the thermal occupation of the modes of a highly attenuated coaxial cable in a range of 0.001 to 0.4 thermal photons, corresponding to a temperature range from 35 mK to 210 mK at a frequency around 5 GHz. To increase the radiation temperature in a controlled fashion, we either inject calibrated, wideband digital noise, or heat the device and its environment. This thermometry scheme can find applications in benchmarking and characterization of cryogenic microwave setups, temperature measurements in hybrid quantum systems, and quantum thermodynamics.
The parity of the number of elementary excitations present in a quantum system provides important insights into its physical properties. Parity measurements are used, for example, totomographically reconstruct quantum states or to determine if a decay of an excitation has occurred, information which can be used for quantum error correction in computation or communication protocols. Here we demonstrate a versatile parity detector for propagating microwaves, which distinguishes between radiation fields containing an even or odd number n of photons, both in a single-shot measurement and without perturbing the parity of the detected field. We showcase applications of the detector for direct Wigner tomography of propagating microwaves and heralded generation of Schrödinger cat states. This parity detection scheme is applicable over a broad frequency range and may prove useful, for example, for heralded or fault-tolerant quantum communication protocols.