Mapping the positions of Two-Level-Systems on the surface of a superconducting transmon qubit

  1. Jürgen Lisenfeld,
  2. Alexander K. Händel,
  3. Etienne Daum,
  4. Benedikt Berlitz,
  5. Alexander Bilmes,
  6. and Alexey V. Ustinov
The coherence of superconducting quantum computers is severely limited by material defects that create parasitic two-level-systems (TLS). Progress is complicated by lacking understanding
how TLS are created and in which parts of a qubit circuit they are most detrimental. Here, we present a method to determine the individual positions of TLS at the surface of a transmon qubit. We employ a set of on-chip gate electrodes near the qubit to generate local DC electric fields that are used to tune the TLS‘ resonance frequencies. The TLS position is inferred from the strengths at which TLS couple to different electrodes and comparing them to electric field simulations. We found that the majority of detectable surface-TLS was residing on the leads of the qubit’s Josephson junction, despite the dominant contribution of its coplanar capacitor to electric field energy and surface area. This indicates that the TLS density is significantly enhanced near shadow-evaporated electrodes fabricated by lift-off techniques. Our method is useful to identify critical circuit regions where TLS contribute most to decoherence, and can guide improvements in qubit design and fabrication methods.

Gradiometric, Fully Tunable C-Shunted Flux Qubits

  1. Benedikt Berlitz,
  2. Alexander Konstantin Händel,
  3. Etienne Daum,
  4. Alexey V. Ustinov,
  5. and Jürgen Lisenfeld
Fully tunable flux qubits offer in-situ and independent controls of their energy potential asymmetry and tunnel barrier, making them versatile tools for quantum computation and the
study of decoherence sources. However, only short coherence times have been demonstrated so far with this type of qubit. Here, we present a capacitively shunted flux qubit featuring improved relaxation times up to T1 = 25 μs and a frequency tunability range of ∼ 20 GHz at the flux-insensitive sweet spot. As a model application, we demonstrate detection of two-level tunneling defects in a frequency range spanning one octave.