Gralmonium: Granular Aluminum Nano-Junction Fluxonium Qubit

  1. D. Rieger,
  2. S. Günzler,
  3. M. Spiecker,
  4. P. Paluch,
  5. P. Winkel,
  6. L. Hahn,
  7. J. K. Hohmann,
  8. A. Bacher,
  9. W. Wernsdorfer,
  10. and I. M. Pop
Mesoscopic Josephson junctions (JJs), consisting of overlapping superconducting electrodes separated by a nanometer thin oxide layer, provide a precious source of nonlinearity for superconducting
quantum circuits and are at the heart of state-of-the-art qubits, such as the transmon and fluxonium. Here, we show that in a fluxonium qubit the role of the JJ can also be played by a lithographically defined, self-structured granular aluminum (grAl) nano-junction: a superconductor-insulator-superconductor (SIS) JJ obtained in a single layer, zero-angle evaporation. The measured spectrum of the resulting qubit, which we nickname gralmonium, is indistinguishable from the one of a standard fluxonium qubit. Remarkably, the lack of a mesoscopic parallel plate capacitor gives rise to an intrinsically large grAl nano-junction charging energy in the range of 10−100GHz, comparable to its Josephson energy EJ. We measure average energy relaxation times of T1=10μs and Hahn echo coherence times of Techo2=9μs. The exponential sensitivity of the gralmonium to the EJ of the grAl nano-junction provides a highly susceptible detector. Indeed, we observe spontaneous jumps of the value of EJ on timescales from milliseconds to days, which offer a powerful diagnostics tool for microscopic defects in superconducting materials.