Single-Shot Readout of a Superconducting Qubit Using a Thermal Detector

  1. András M. Gunyhó,
  2. Suman Kundu,
  3. Jian Ma,
  4. Wei Liu,
  5. Sakari Niemelä,
  6. Giacomo Catto,
  7. Vasilii Vadimov,
  8. Visa Vesterinen,
  9. Priyank Singh,
  10. Qiming Chen,
  11. and Mikko Möttönen
Measuring the state of qubits is one of the fundamental operations of a quantum computer. Currently, state-of-the-art high-fidelity single-shot readout of superconducting qubits relies
on parametric amplifiers at the millikelvin stage. However, parametric amplifiers are challenging to scale beyond hundreds of qubits owing to practical size and power limitations. Nanobolometers have properties that are advantageous for scalability and have recently shown sensitivity and speed promising for qubit readout, but such thermal detectors have not been demonstrated for this purpose. In this work, we utilize an ultrasensitive bolometer in place of a parametric amplifier to experimentally demonstrate single-shot qubit readout. With a modest readout duration of 13.9 μs, we achieve a single-shot fidelity of 0.618 which is mainly limited by the energy relaxation time of the qubit, T1=28 μs. Without the T1 errors, we find the fidelity to be 0.927. In the future, high-fidelity single-shot readout may be achieved by straightforward improvements to the chip design and experimental setup, and perhaps most interestingly by the change of the bolometer absorber material to reduce the readout time to the hundred-nanosecond level.

Propagating Quantum Microwaves: Towards Applications in Communication and Sensing

  1. Mateo Casariego,
  2. Emmanuel Zambrini Cruzeiro,
  3. Stefano Gherardini,
  4. Tasio Gonzalez-Raya,
  5. Rui André,
  6. Gonçalo Frazão,
  7. Giacomo Catto,
  8. Mikko Möttönen,
  9. Debopam Datta,
  10. Klaara Viisanen,
  11. Joonas Govenius,
  12. Mika Prunnila,
  13. Kimmo Tuominen,
  14. Maximilian Reichert,
  15. Michael Renger,
  16. Kirill G. Fedorov,
  17. Frank Deppe,
  18. Harriet van der Vliet,
  19. A. J. Matthews,
  20. Yolanda Fernández,
  21. R. Assouly,
  22. R. Dassonneville,
  23. B. Huard,
  24. Mikel Sanz,
  25. and Yasser Omar
The field of propagating quantum microwaves has started to receive considerable attention in the past few years. Motivated at first by the lack of an efficient microwave-to-optical
platform that could solve the issue of secure communication between remote superconducting chips, current efforts are starting to reach other areas, from quantum communications to sensing. Here, we attempt at giving a state-of-the-art view of the two, pointing at some of the technical and theoretical challenges we need to address, and while providing some novel ideas and directions for future research. Hence, the goal of this paper is to provide a bigger picture, and — we hope — to inspire new ideas in quantum communications and sensing: from open-air microwave quantum key distribution to direct detection of dark matter, we expect that the recent efforts and results in quantum microwaves will soon attract a wider audience, not only in the academic community, but also in an industrial environment.