Superconducting quantum processors have made significant progress in size and computing potential. As a result, the practical cryogenic limitations of operating large numbers of superconductingqubits are becoming a bottleneck for further scaling. Due to the low thermal conductivity and the dense optical multiplexing capacity of telecommunications fiber, converting qubit signal processing to the optical domain using microwave-to-optics transduction would significantly relax the strain on cryogenic space and thermal budgets. Here, we demonstrate high-fidelity multi-shot optical readout through an optical fiber of a superconducting transmon qubit connected via a coaxial cable to a fully integrated piezo-optomechanical transducer. Using a demolition readout technique, we achieve a multi-shot readout fidelity of >99% at 6 μW of optical power transmitted into the cryostat with as few as 200 averages, without the use of a quantum-limited amplifier. With improved frequency matching between the transducer and the qubit readout resonator, we anticipate that single-shot optical readout is achievable. Due to the small footprint (<0.15mm2) and the modular fiber-based architecture, this device platform has the potential to scale towards use with thousands of qubits. Our results illustrate the potential of piezo-optomechanical transduction for low-dissipation operation of large quantum processors.[/expand]
Superconducting circuit testing and materials loss characterization requires robust and reliable methods for the extraction of internal and coupling quality factors of microwave resonators.A common method, imposed by limitations on the device design or experimental configuration, is the single-port reflection geometry, i.e. reflection-mode. However, impedance mismatches in cryogenic systems must be accounted for through calibration of the measurement chain while it is at low temperatures. In this paper, we demonstrate a data-based, single-port calibration using commercial microwave standards and a vector network analyzer (VNA) with samples at millikelvin temperature in a dilution refrigerator, making this method useful for measurements of quantum phenomena. Finally, we cross reference our data-based, single-port calibration and reflection measurement with over-coupled 2D- and 3D-resonators against well established two-port techniques corroborating the validity of our method.
Superconducting qubits are an attractive platform for quantum computing since they have demonstrated high-fidelity quantum gates and extensibility to modest system sizes. Nonetheless,an outstanding challenge is stabilizing their energy-relaxation times, which can fluctuate unpredictably in frequency and time. Here, we use qubits as spectral and temporal probes of individual two-level-system defects to provide direct evidence that they are responsible for the largest fluctuations. This research lays the foundation for stabilizing qubit performance through calibration, design, and fabrication.
We develop a high speed on-chip flux measurement using a capacitively shunted SQUID as an embedded cryogenic transducer and apply this technique to the qualification of a near-termscalable printed circuit board (PCB) package for frequency tunable superconducting qubits. The transducer is a flux tunable LC resonator where applied flux changes the resonant frequency. We apply a microwave tone to probe this frequency and use a time-domain homodyne measurement to extract the reflected phase as a function of flux applied to the SQUID. The transducer response bandwidth is 2.6 GHz with a maximum gain of 1200∘/Φ0 allowing us to study the settling amplitude to better than 0.1%. We use this technique to characterize on-chip bias line routing and a variety of PCB based packages and demonstrate that step response settling can vary by orders of magnitude in both settling time and amplitude depending on if normal or superconducting materials are used. By plating copper PCBs in aluminum we measure a step response consistent with the packaging used for existing high-fidelity qubits.
Complex integrated circuits require multiple wiring layers. In complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) processing, these layers are robustly separated by amorphous dielectrics.These dielectrics would dominate energy loss in superconducting integrated circuits. Here we demonstrate a procedure that capitalizes on the structural benefits of inter-layer dielectrics during fabrication and mitigates the added loss. We separate and support multiple wiring layers throughout fabrication using SiO2 scaffolding, then remove it post-fabrication. This technique is compatible with foundry level processing and the can be generalized to make many different forms of low-loss multi-layer wiring. We use this technique to create freestanding aluminum vacuum gap crossovers (airbridges). We characterize the added capacitive loss of these airbridges by connecting ground planes over microwave frequency λ/4 coplanar waveguide resonators and measuring resonator loss. We measure a low power resonator loss of ∼3.9×10−8 per bridge, which is 100 times lower than dielectric supported bridges. We further characterize these airbridges as crossovers, control line jumpers, and as part of a coupling network in gmon and fuxmon qubits. We measure qubit characteristic lifetimes (T1’s) in excess of 30 μs in gmon devices.
We present a fabrication process for fully superconducting interconnects compatible with superconducting qubit technology. These interconnects allow for the 3D integration of quantumcircuits without introducing lossy amorphous dielectrics. They are composed of indium bumps several microns tall separated from an aluminum base layer by titanium nitride which serves as a diffusion barrier. We measure the whole structure to be superconducting (transition temperature of 1.1K), limited by the aluminum. These interconnects have an average critical current of 26.8mA, and mechanical shear and thermal cycle testing indicate that these devices are mechanically robust. Our process provides a method that reliably yields superconducting interconnects suitable for use with superconducting qubits.
Josephson junctions form the essential non-linearity for almost all superconducting qubits. The junction is formed when two superconducting electrodes come within ∼1 nm of each other.Although the capacitance of these electrodes is a small fraction of the total qubit capacitance, the nearby electric fields are more concentrated in dielectric surfaces and can contribute substantially to the total dissipation. We have developed a technique to experimentally investigate the effect of these electrodes on the quality of superconducting devices. We use λ/4 coplanar waveguide resonators to emulate lumped qubit capacitors. We add a variable number of these electrodes to the capacitive end of these resonators and measure how the additional loss scales with number of electrodes. We then reduce this loss with fabrication techniques that limit the amount of lossy dielectrics. We then apply these techniques to the fabrication of Xmon qubits on a silicon substrate to improve their energy relaxation times by a factor of 5.
By analyzing the dissipative dynamics of a tunable gap flux qubit, we extract both sides of its two-sided environmental flux noise spectral density over a range of frequencies around2kBT/h≈1GHz, allowing for the observation of a classical-quantum crossover. Below the crossover point, the symmetric noise component follows a 1/f power law that matches the magnitude of the 1/f noise near 1Hz. The antisymmetric component displays a 1/T dependence below 100mK, providing dynamical evidence for a paramagnetic environment. Extrapolating the two-sided spectrum predicts the linewidth and reorganization energy of incoherent resonant tunneling between flux qubit wells.
We present a method to optimize qubit control parameters during error detection which is compatible with large-scale qubit arrays. We demonstrate our method to optimize single or two-qubitgates in parallel on a nine-qubit system. Additionally, we show how parameter drift can be compensated for during computation by inserting a frequency drift and using our method to remove it. We remove both drift on a single qubit and independent drifts on all qubits simultaneously. We believe this method will be useful in keeping error rates low on all physical qubits throughout the course of a computation. Our method is O(1) scalable to systems of arbitrary size, providing a path towards controlling the large numbers of qubits needed for a fault-tolerant quantum computer
We report the first electronic structure calculation performed on a quantum computer without exponentially costly precompilation. We use a programmable array of superconducting qubitsto compute the energy surface of molecular hydrogen using two distinct quantum algorithms. First, we experimentally execute the unitary coupled cluster method using the variational quantum eigensolver. Our efficient implementation predicts the correct dissociation energy to within chemical accuracy of the numerically exact result. Next, we experimentally demonstrate the canonical quantum algorithm for chemistry, which consists of Trotterization and quantum phase estimation. We compare the experimental performance of these approaches to show clear evidence that the variational quantum eigensolver is robust to certain errors, inspiring hope that quantum simulation of classically intractable molecules may be viable in the near future.