Many superconducting qubits are highly sensitive to dielectric loss, making the fabrication of coherent quantum circuits challenging. To elucidate this issue, we characterize the interfacesand surfaces of superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators and study the associated microwave loss. We show that contamination induced by traditional qubit lift-off processing is particularly detrimental to quality factors without proper substrate cleaning, while roughness plays at most a small role. Aggressive surface treatment is shown to damage the crystalline substrate and degrade resonator quality. We also introduce methods to characterize and remove ultra-thin resist residue, providing a way to quantify and minimize remnant sources of loss on device surfaces.
We present a method for optimizing quantum control in experimental systems, using a subset of randomized benchmarking measurements to rapidly infer error. This is demonstrated to improvesingle- and two-qubit gates, minimize gate bleedthrough, where a gate mechanism can cause errors on subsequent gates, and identify control crosstalk in superconducting qubits. This method is able to correct parameters to where control errors no longer dominate, and is suitable for automated and closed-loop optimization of experimental systems
In this work we theoretically analyze a circuit QED design where propagating
quantum microwaves interact with a single artificial atom, a single Cooper pair
box. In particular, we derivea master equation in the so-called transmon
regime, including coherent drives. Inspired by recent experiments, we then
apply the master equation to describe the dynamics in both a two-level and a
three-level approximation of the atom. In the two-level case, we also discuss
how to measure photon antibunching in the reflected field and how it is
affected by finite temperature and finite detection bandwidth.