Realization of Super-Robust Geometric Control in a Superconducting Circuit

  1. Sai Li,
  2. Bao-Jie Liu,
  3. Zhongchu Ni,
  4. Libo Zhang,
  5. Zheng-Yuan Xue,
  6. Jian Li,
  7. Fei Yan,
  8. Yuanzhen Chen,
  9. Song Liu,
  10. Man-Hong Yung,
  11. Yuan Xu,
  12. and Dapeng Yu
Geometric phases accompanying adiabatic quantum evolutions can be used to construct robust quantum control for quantum information processing due to their noise-resilient feature. A
significant development along this line is to construct geometric gates using nonadiabatic quantum evolutions to reduce errors due to decoherence. However, it has been shown that nonadiabatic geometric gates are not necessarily more robust than dynamical ones, in contrast to an intuitive expectation. Here we experimentally investigate this issue for the case of nonadiabatic holonomic quantum computation~(NHQC) and show that conventional NHQC schemes cannot guarantee the expected robustness due to a cross coupling to the states outside the computational space. We implement a new set of constraints for gate construction in order to suppress such cross coupling to achieve an enhanced robustness. Using a superconducting quantum circuit, we demonstrate high-fidelity holonomic gates whose infidelity against quasi-static transverse errors can be suppressed up to the fourth order, instead of the second order in conventional NHQC and dynamical gates. In addition, we explicitly measure the accumulated dynamical phase due to the above mentioned cross coupling and verify that it is indeed much reduced in our NHQC scheme. We further demonstrate a protocol for constructing two-qubit NHQC gates also with an enhanced robustness.

Suppressing Coherent Two-Qubit Errors via Dynamical Decoupling

  1. Jiawei Qiu,
  2. Yuxuan Zhou,
  3. Chang-Kang Hu,
  4. Jiahao Yuan,
  5. Libo Zhang,
  6. Ji Chu,
  7. Wenhui Huang,
  8. Weiyang Liu,
  9. Kai Luo,
  10. Zhongchu Ni,
  11. Xianchuang Pan,
  12. Zhixuan Yang,
  13. Yimeng Zhang,
  14. Yuanzhen Chen,
  15. Xiu-Hao Deng,
  16. Ling Hu,
  17. Jian Li,
  18. Jingjing Niu,
  19. Yuan Xu,
  20. Tongxing Yan,
  21. Youpeng Zhong,
  22. Song Liu,
  23. Fei Yan,
  24. and Dapeng Yu
Scalable quantum information processing requires the ability to tune multi-qubit interactions. This makes the precise manipulation of quantum states particularly difficult for multi-qubit
interactions because tunability unavoidably introduces sensitivity to fluctuations in the tuned parameters, leading to erroneous multi-qubit gate operations. The performance of quantum algorithms may be severely compromised by coherent multi-qubit errors. It is therefore imperative to understand how these fluctuations affect multi-qubit interactions and, more importantly, to mitigate their influence. In this study, we demonstrate how to implement dynamical-decoupling techniques to suppress the two-qubit analogue of the dephasing on a superconducting quantum device featuring a compact tunable coupler, a trending technology that enables the fast manipulation of qubit–qubit interactions. The pure-dephasing time shows an up to ~14 times enhancement on average when using robust sequences. The results are in good agreement with the noise generated from room-temperature circuits. Our study further reveals the decohering processes associated with tunable couplers and establishes a framework to develop gates and sequences robust against two-qubit errors.

Phase sensitive Landau-Zener-Stückelberg interference in superconducting quantum circuit

  1. Zhi-Xuan Yang,
  2. Yi-Meng Zhang,
  3. Yu-Xuan Zhou,
  4. Li-Bo Zhang,
  5. Fei Yan,
  6. Song Liu,
  7. Yuan Xu,
  8. and Jian Li
Superconducting circuit quantum electrodynamics (QED) architecture composed of superconducting qubit and resonator is a powerful platform for exploring quantum physics and quantum information
processing. By employing techniques developed for superconducting quantum computing, we experimentally investigate phase-sensitive Landau-Zener-Stückelberg (LZS) interference phenomena in a circuit QED. Our experiments cover a large range of LZS transition parameters, and demonstrate the LZS induced Rabi-like oscillation as well as phase-dependent steady-state population.

High-fidelity, high-scalability two-qubit gate scheme for superconducting qubits

  1. Yuan Xu,
  2. Ji Chu,
  3. Jiahao Yuan,
  4. Jiawei Qiu,
  5. Yuxuan Zhou,
  6. Libo Zhang,
  7. Xinsheng Tan,
  8. Yang Yu,
  9. Song Liu,
  10. Jian Li,
  11. Fei Yan,
  12. and Dapeng Yu
High-quality two-qubit gate operations are crucial for scalable quantum information processing. Often, the gate fidelity is compromised when the system becomes more integrated. Therefore,
a low-error-rate, easy-to-scale two-qubit gate scheme is highly desirable. Here, we experimentally demonstrate a new two-qubit gate scheme that exploits fixed-frequency qubits and a tunable coupler in a superconducting quantum circuit. The scheme requires less control lines, reduces crosstalk effect, simplifies calibration procedures, yet produces a controlled-Z gate in 30ns with a high fidelity of 99.5%. Error analysis shows that gate errors are mostly coherence-limited. Our demonstration paves the way for large-scale implementation of high-fidelity quantum operations.

Engineering Framework for Optimizing Superconducting Qubit Designs

  1. Fei Yan,
  2. Youngkyu Sung,
  3. Philip Krantz,
  4. Archana Kamal,
  5. David K. Kim,
  6. Jonilyn L. Yoder,
  7. Terry P. Orlando,
  8. Simon Gustavsson,
  9. and William D. Oliver
Superconducting quantum technologies require qubit systems whose properties meet several often conflicting requirements, such as long coherence times and high anharmonicity. Here, we
provide an engineering framework based on a generalized superconducting qubit model in the flux regime, which abstracts multiple circuit design parameters and thereby supports design optimization across multiple qubit properties. We experimentally investigate a special parameter regime which has both high anharmonicity (∼1GHz) and long quantum coherence times (T1=40−80μs and T2Echo=2T1).

Spin wave based tunable switch between superconducting flux qubits

  1. Shaojie Yuan,
  2. Chuanpu Liu,
  3. Jilei Chen,
  4. Song Liu,
  5. Jin Lan,
  6. Haiming Yu,
  7. Jiansheng Wu,
  8. Fei Yan,
  9. Man-Hong Yung,
  10. Jiang Xiao,
  11. Liang Jiang,
  12. and Dapeng Yu
Quantum computing hardware has received world-wide attention and made considerable progress recently. YIG thin film have spin wave (magnon) modes with low dissipation and reliable control
for quantum information processing. However, the coherent coupling between a quantum device and YIG thin film has yet been demonstrated. Here, we propose a scheme to achieve strong coupling between superconducting flux qubits and magnon modes in YIG thin film. Unlike the direct N−−√ enhancement factor in coupling to the Kittel mode or other spin ensembles, with N the total number of spins, an additional spatial dependent phase factor needs to be considered when the qubits are magnetically coupled with the magnon modes of finite wavelength. To avoid undesirable cancelation of coupling caused by the symmetrical boundary condition, a CoFeB thin layer is added to one side of the YIG thin film to break the symmetry. Our numerical simulation demonstrates avoided crossing and coherent transfer of quantum information between the flux qubits and the standing spin waves in YIG thin films. We show that the YIG thin film can be used as a tunable switch between two flux qubits, which have modified shape with small direct inductive coupling between them. Our results manifest that it is possible to couple flux qubits while suppressing undesirable cross-talk.

Multi-level Quantum Noise Spectroscopy

  1. Youngkyu Sung,
  2. Antti Vepsäläinen,
  3. Jochen Braumüller,
  4. Fei Yan,
  5. Joel I-Jan Wang,
  6. Morten Kjaergaard,
  7. Roni Winik,
  8. Philip Krantz,
  9. Andreas Bengtsson,
  10. Alexander J. Melville,
  11. Bethany M. Niedzielski,
  12. Mollie E. Schwartz,
  13. David K. Kim,
  14. Jonilyn L. Yoder,
  15. Terry P. Orlando,
  16. Simon Gustavsson,
  17. and William D. Oliver
System noise identification is crucial to the engineering of robust quantum systems. Although existing quantum noise spectroscopy (QNS) protocols measure an aggregate amount of noise
affecting a quantum system, they generally cannot distinguish between the underlying processes that contribute to it. Here, we propose and experimentally validate a spin-locking-based QNS protocol that exploits the multi-level energy structure of a superconducting qubit to achieve two notable advances. First, our protocol extends the spectral range of weakly anharmonic qubit spectrometers beyond the present limitations set by their lack of strong anharmonicity. Second, the additional information gained from probing the higher-excited levels enables us to identify and distinguish contributions from different underlying noise mechanisms.

A Quantum Engineer’s Guide to Superconducting Qubits

  1. Philip Krantz,
  2. Morten Kjaergaard,
  3. Fei Yan,
  4. Terry P. Orlando,
  5. Simon Gustavsson,
  6. and William D. Oliver
The aim of this review is to provide quantum engineers with an introductory guide to the central concepts and challenges in the rapidly accelerating field of superconducting quantum
circuits. Over the past twenty years, the field has matured from a predominantly basic research endeavor to one that increasingly explores the engineering of larger-scale superconducting quantum systems. Here, we review several foundational elements — qubit design, noise properties, qubit control, and readout techniques — developed during this period, bridging fundamental concepts in circuit quantum electrodynamics (cQED) and contemporary, state-of-the-art applications in gate-model quantum computation.

A tunable coupling scheme for implementing high-fidelity two-qubit gates

  1. Fei Yan,
  2. Philip Krantz,
  3. Youngkyu Sung,
  4. Morten Kjaergaard,
  5. Dan Campbell,
  6. Joel I.J. Wang,
  7. Terry P. Orlando,
  8. Simon Gustavsson,
  9. and William D. Oliver
The prospect of computational hardware with quantum advantage relies critically on the quality of quantum gate operations. Imperfect two-qubit gates is a major bottleneck for achieving
scalable quantum information processors. Here, we propose a generalizable and extensible scheme for a two-qubit coupler switch that controls the qubit-qubit coupling by modulating the coupler frequency. Two-qubit gate operations can be implemented by operating the coupler in the dispersive regime, which is non-invasive to the qubit states. We investigate the performance of the scheme by simulating a universal two-qubit gate on a superconducting quantum circuit, and find that errors from known parasitic effects are strongly suppressed. The scheme is compatible with existing high-coherence hardware, thereby promising a higher gate fidelity with current technologies.

Distinguishing coherent and thermal photon noise in a circuit QED system

  1. Fei Yan,
  2. Dan Campbell,
  3. Philip Krantz,
  4. Morten Kjaergaard,
  5. David Kim,
  6. Jonilyn L. Yoder,
  7. David Hover,
  8. Adam Sears,
  9. Andrew J. Kerman,
  10. Terry P. Orlando,
  11. Simon Gustavsson,
  12. and William D. Oliver
In the cavity-QED architecture, photon number fluctuations from residual cavity photons cause qubit dephasing due to the AC Stark effect. These unwanted photons originate from a variety
of sources, such as thermal radiation, leftover measurement photons, and crosstalk. Using a capacitively-shunted flux qubit coupled to a transmission line cavity, we demonstrate a method that identifies and distinguishes coherent and thermal photons based on noise-spectral reconstruction from time-domain spin-locking relaxometry. Using these measurements, we attribute the limiting dephasing source in our system to thermal photons, rather than coherent photons. By improving the cryogenic attenuation on lines leading to the cavity, we successfully suppress residual thermal photons and achieve T1-limited spin-echo decay time. The spin-locking noise spectroscopy technique can readily be applied to other qubit modalities for identifying general asymmetric non-classical noise spectra.